The Move
by curiosity-driven
Summary: Forced to move to Forks, Layla, Percy, and Annabeth are living next to Charlie Swan and his house guest Renesmee. From the start Layla struggles to keep her secret from Jake who always seems to be watching, and Seth the one who just can't seem to go away.
1. Heads Up, Were Moving Across the Country

I was so mad that I could cry.

"Why do I have to move again?" I asked Chiron.

"Well as you know Zeus and Poseidon are having a little bit a feud and by your father's orders he thinks it would be best for your protection if you move to Washington." He said calmly.

"So I have to move because of my father? Of course. " I shook my head. Typical him. Typical Big Three, always fighting. I rolled my eyes.

"If it makes you feel better Percy is moving too."

"Yeah but Percy has a _life_, he's married! _I _don't have a life anymore, you can't take me away from the only home I have."

"Layla we will not have this discussion, you are moving to Washington by your father's orders and that's final. You're only there until the feud is over."

This was unbelievable. "Fine, I'll move, but the town _has_ to have the ocean somewhere near it."

"That has already been settled, Poseidon wouldn't have it any other way. You're moving to Forks, Washington. You leave as soon as possible, it is the end of summer and you need to get to school."

Great, what's the neighboring city, Spoons?

"Whatever, I'll see you later Chiron."

I walked out of the Big House and breathed in the night air. I was moving in half way across the country in maybe just a week or even worse, a day! Nothing is ever stable anymore, not until I got here, and not until I found out who my dad is. Sometimes I wish I still didn't know who I was, because then, my mom would still be alive.

I walked into my cabin to see Percy laying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"So you heard the news?" Even though my brother bugs the crap out of me, I love it that we some weird ESP connection.

"Yeah," I walked over to my waterfall by my bed. Percy has a fountain, and I have a waterfall, the old man had a weird feeling to make it even. "Can't believe it, that's all."

"Annabeth is coming with us."

"Why wouldn't she be?" When it came to Annabeth I couldn't really be mad, she has this weird effect on me, but shes like a sister.

"No it's just..."

"She doesn't want to move, does she?"

"She just doesn't want to leave Olympus, it's her baby. But now we have a _real _ baby on the way."

"Oh gods." I laid back on my bed and stared at the ceiling with Percy.

"I mean we're 29, it's time, but I don't think she wants to live in the place we're moving for forever. Some time's it takes to the gods years to get over this stuff."

"I guess I get what you're saying, for a 16 year old anyway."

"Oh gods you're not pregnant are you?" He shot up from his bed.

"No!" I said quickly looking at him. "_No_, I just mean, woman to woman, I get it! Good job smart stuff."

Percy calmed down, "Okay good, I can't two people close to me pregnant To many hormones."

"You're such a guy."

"Good, I don't want you thinking I'm girly or anything."

"So I'm guessing were all sharing a house?" I asked.

"Yeah, and get this, it's right next to the Chief of Police's house."

"Your kidding. Better not be any monsters in Washington, we'd get in way to much trouble."

"Don't worry I got your back." He said flexing his muscles.

"You are so lame," I told with a blank expression.

"Fine ruin my fun."

"I will." I looked down. "So do we leave like, in two days?"

"Yup, but here's the bright side! Hermes is taking us and transporting everything that we need so all you don't need to do is... say good bye."

I looked at my waterfall, and suddenly that's how I felt, falling...

**Two Days Later**

"Okay we have to get this over with quickly, so I hope you said good bye to everyone you needed to and to easy your nerves everything is moved into your new house." Hermes said with a fast tone. "Now just close your eyes, touch my arm and hold on."

I took one last look at Camp Half-Blood, _Good bye_, I said to it. Yesterday I said my good byes to my best friend Rex of the Apollo cabin and Jenn of the Demeter cabin. They weren't very happy to see me leave but it's not like I was either. I close my eyes and griped Hermes's aviator jacket. There was a light so bright I winced because it went through my eyelids and it was like looking at the sun. I wanted to say ow but it faded away just a fast as it came.

"Welcome to the ever so rainy Forks. Enjoy your stay! Wish I could stay and chat but I have to go!" Hermes said.

"Thanks for the lift man." Percy said.

I looked around, we were in a small house with light yellow walls and a brown couch in front of an ancient looking TV, I mean it still needed a DVD player, you couldn't just access it from the TV itself!

"Not to shabby!" Percy said trying to be positive.

"It'll be interesting that's for sure." Annabeth said putting a hand on his shoulder.

I walked up the small stairwell that probably led to our bedrooms because besides the main room that we landed in and the kitchen, there weren't any other rooms on that floor. The wood floors cracked when I stepped up them, when I got to the top two small rooms, one barley bigger than the other, had been put there. And a bathroom. I knew the smaller one was mine, partly because the bigger one had a bigger bed and because it looked like my room before I came to camp.

Light green walls, pictures of scenery lined the walls, there was a twin bed underneath the window, a small rug in the middle. The room was small, but cozy, there was even a mini waterfall in the corner. I smiled at that. I looked into my closet and saw that all my clothes were stocked inside. Cool.

I took one last look at my new room and headed back downstairs. I went into the kitchen where I saw Percy and Annabeth sitting down at the tiny table.

"Hey," I said.

"How is it up there?" Annabeth asked.

"I think you'll like it. I'm pretty sure they're like our dream rooms, because that's what mine looks like, and I bet yours is the same." I told them.

"Oh thank the gods," She breathed in. "I hoped that it wouldn't be just bare in there."

I smiled. "So do we like have a car?"

"Yeah, we have our car." Percy told me.

"Ok good, do I get to use it at all? Like to go to school I mean."

"I guess so." He said.

I felt bad for Percy right now, it was him, and two girls. What a loser. I looked around and I caught a look of myself in a little mirror. My light brown hair shined, and my trademark sea green eyes stood out more than I'd like them too.

"I think I'm going to go outside." I said.

"In the rain?" Annabeth asked.

"It's not like I can get wet."

"Layla, what if someone sees you?" Percy said.

"Fine, I'll put on my rain coat."

I went over to the coat closet, which too was had all of our stuff in it, and grabbed my maroon North Face rain coat that I never even used anymore. I walked outside into the rain, we had one of two houses on our street. The other house had a police car in front of it and another older car. The house looked plain and white, two story's like ours. I saw a middle aged man step out onto his porch.

"Are you the new neighbor?" He asked while cracking a beer.

"Yeah, just got in today." I replied.

"Well are going to stand in the rain or come in?"

I looked back at the new house, _Well it could be an adventure_. I smiled and headed over to the porch. "Thank you," I said, "I'm Layla."

He stuck his hand out for me to shake, "Charlie," I shook his hand with a firm grip, "Well come inside."

"Thank you," The house was cute, an old flat screen in the corner with a couch and table across from it. A tiny hallway lead into the kitchen where I heard some one cooking.

"Hey Jake come say hello to our new neighbor!" Charlie called.

Then a _huge_ guy, obviously Jake, came into the room. He looked pretty muscular in his white t-shirt. His black hair was chopped off and short, he was deeply tanned so I had a feeling he was part of the Native American reservation just 15 minutes away. Jake, was also pretty cute.

"Hey," He said with a head nod, "I'm Jacob."

"I'm Layla."

"So did you live in Washington before this?" He asked.

"Um no, I lived in Long Island."

"Wow you came a long way, must be hard getting used to it. But what made you come _here_ to this dump of a town?"

"Honestly I don't know, my dad picked it out."

"So you live here with your dad?"

"No, I moved with my older brother Percy and his wife Annabeth."

"Oh, cool." Jake said casually.

It got a little awkward so asked him what he was making.

"Just spaghetti, Charlie here can't cook." Jake said rolling his eyes.

"I can cook... eggs." Charlie said.

"How edible are those eggs?" Charlie didn't answer.

"I get what you mean, Annabeth and I are always cooking for Percy, it's ridiculous."

"Get used to it, because it won't change." Jake chuckled.

"So how old are you anyway? You look young, but looks don't always tell the truth." Jake gave me a serious look and didn't answer. "What? Did I say something?"

"No, it's just you're smart, that's all. But I'm 18."

"Thanks, and I'm glad I asked because I thought you were 16."

"I get that a lot." He paused. "So what are you're going to Forks High right?"

"Yeah," I said kind of disappointed.

"What's wrong with Forks High? My girlfriend Renesmee goes there."

So he has a girlfriend, no surprise there. "Really?"

"Yeah, she's right upstairs, taking a nap, she had a big day. You're not the _only_ one who moved to Forks. Well in this case back to Forks but maybe you two have something in common."

"So Charlie is her grandpa, that's nice, chief of police, she must get our real often."

"More than you think, she escapes with me most of the time."

"So do you come over here often? I'm just asking because I know I'll get bored, I mean Percy and Annabeth aren't _that_ interesting."

Well, not as interesting as I heard they used to be. The Stoll brothers, who surprisingly visit Camp every once in a while, tell me funny stories about them _all_ the time. And for payback Percy tell me about all the stupid things Travis would say to get Katie Gardner out on a date with him. They're both pretty equal on the whole I-can't-believe-you-were-stupid-enough-to-do-that scale.

"I'm here a lot, sometimes with Nessie but others with my dad who's good buddies with Charlie here. Soon I'll have to bring a friend to set you up with."

I blushed, "I'm here for less than two hours and a mere stranger is already setting me up."

"Don't worry, you get to know people here _real_ quickly."

I looked out a window and I saw Percy looking around outside. "Oh," I said pointing at my brother. "Percy is looking for me, I have to go, but it was very nice meeting you."

I turned to go but Jake stopped me, "Layla! Can I have your number? Not in a creepy way, but you know I have to know when I can set you up with my friend."

I laughed, "I'm sorry but I don't have a phone. I lose them to easily."

"Ok then here," He took a Sharpie marker out of his back pocket and reached for my left arm. Jake slid my coat up my rain reveling my tan skin. His hands were boiling hot, but they felt nice. "This is my number, call me if you need anything, I can be your tour guide." He said as he wrote the digits.

"Thanks Jake, that means a lot to the new girl." I smiled. "Bye Charlie, see you around."

Charlie had retreated to the couch while Jake and I were talking. "Good bye Layla, it was good to meet you."

I gave a last wave to Jake and headed back to our, green (yuck) house. Percy was waiting for me in the doorway.

"I was gone for like three minutes, what's up?" I said.

"Spider's that's what's up, Annabeth is having a meltdown."

"You're kidding me right?"

"Nope, shes in her room."

"What do you want _me_ to do about it? I'm the useless little sister!"

"Well you're also a girl and all girls have some freaky girl connection."

"Um, you're also the _husband!_ Don't _you_ have some freaky husband connection? Go comfort your wife Percy."

This is what I mean when I say he bugs the crap out of me sometimes, he can't handle it when girls have meltdowns. When I have one, he sends Annabeth in. When Annabeth has a meltdown (that are a lot worse than mine because it isn't often) he always makes _me_ talk to her and calm her down. Like I said, he's the husband!

"Fine. But if it gets worse then you have to come up!" With that Percy stomped up the creaky stairs.

I rolled my eyes because that was a very dramatic accent up the stairs. The TV caught my eye and I thought that maybe I could try and figure it out. 15 minutes later I gave up thinking that Percy would know how to use it because he was actually alive when they were around! I went over to the fridge (which was also stalked with food) and grabbed some of those little Totino's Pizza Rolls and popped them in the microwave. Once they were done I marched up the creaky steps and into my room. In the corner of my eye I saw Percy and Annabeth making out, _Wow they get over things fast._ I thought.

I sat down on my bed, pizza rolls on the nightstand, and looked around my room again. _ I have a room_, I said to myself,_ How long has it even been? Everything's just the way I want it to be..._ I went over to the mini fountain and dropped two little pizza rolls in the water, I prayed as they dissolved.

"Even though you made me move across the country, leave all my friends for a place where I have no friends and rains all the time, thanks for the room dad, it means a lot to me."

I sat down and ate the rest of my little rolls of yummieness, that just hit the spot and I cuddled up in my new sheets and bed and eventually fell asleep. I needed it because tomorrow was the first day of school at Forks High School. Yippee.

**

* * *

**

"Nessie," Jacob whispered to his girlfriend who was still sleeping. "Nessie wake up."

Her eyes fluttered and even in the darkness Jacob could she her beautiful golden eyes.

It was only a month ago when Nessie begged her family to let her stay in Forks for a year to see Jacob and Charlie again. It had been 16 years and she finally looked her own age. Ever since she turned 7 she looked 16 because of her rapid growing. Bella obviously didn't want her to go, especially because the rest of the Cullen's couldn't go with her, it hadn't been nearly long enough for them to all move back. But she would be under the protection of Jacob and the rest of the pack and Bella finally gave in.

Nessie sighed, "What is it Jacob?" She said gently.

"The new neighbors moved in... and I don't think they're normal."

* * *

**NOT a Jacob x OC fic! Tell me if you like it! I have the next chapter all planned out! Even if no one reviews or likes this story I'll still write it! **


	2. Smelly Markers

Waking up wasn't that easy. I couldn't fall asleep, I tossed and turned all night. Once I finally went to bed at six am, my alarm clock went off at 6:30 just like I set it to. Thanks Morpheus, you're real dandy.

Anyways, I washed my face, brushed teeth and hair, dabbed mascara on, peed, put lotion on my legs even though I was wearing jeans, (I know I'm a bit crazy when I'm in a hurry but before I even knew what I was doing I already had one leg done so I _had_ to do the other!) and picked out a simple outfit in less than five minutes. No shower but I took one last night so you can chill. I felt accomplished that I got ready so fast, I was practically beaming in a weird tired way when I came down the stairs to Annabeth who had a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios set at the table for me.

"Percy still sleeping?" I asked.

"Like a baby." She said smiling.

I smiled back, Percy... well Percy was never an early riser. I guess it runs in the family because my beamingness was gone and I wanted to sleep again. "Lucky."

"Didn't get much sleep last night?"

"Try half an hour. Still on Long Island time." I started chewing my cheerios, looking at my watch. It was 7 o'clock. School started in 20 minutes. Crap. I chewed faster. "I'm surprised you're up so early too though, I mean everyone knows you guys are up every night doing it."

Annabeth's mouth gaped open. I stifled a laugh. "How- How do you know that?"

"Oh come on you guys have been married since you were 18! It's no secret." I said laughing. "Oh, look at the time! And I'm out of cheerios! Bye Annabeth!"

I ran out the door with my million pound backpack, barley remembering the keys to the suburban.

"Wait, Layla! Come back!" I slammed the door.

I hurried through the rain and into the car, throwing my JanSport backpack into the passenger seat. I stuffed the keys into the ignition, the engine protested but eventually started right up. You see the thing about Percy's car is that it's older than I am! It's a 2011 Chevy Suburban. They stopped making Suburban's in 2015. Just saying. The thing was ready to die but Percy refused to give it up, just making sure the first brand new car he ever bought was used up to it's full potential.

We reached that limit three years ago.

Pulling out of the drive way and driving along it took me five minutes to figure out that I didn't exactly know where I was going. Yay. So I improvised, I followed all the younger looking people in cars and eventually I found my way to Forks High.

The parking lot was packed, but I felt a little bit better that I wasn't the only kid with an ancient car. The school looked older than the cars, probably built in 1980. Yeah, _old._ Once I found a parking spot in the very back of the lot I grabbed my backpack and started digging through it trying to find my schedule.

Once I found it I practically ran into the school because it was pouring rain and all the other people had gone inside. Checking my watch I saw the time was 7:19. _Shit!_ Homeroom was right next the entry though, thank the gods! I burst through the door huffing and puffing. I thought I was in way better shape than that.

The teacher gave me a stern look. "Late on the first day. I hope we don't make a habit of it Ms..."

"Layla Brice."

"Well Ms. Brice, have a seat."

My homeroom teacher, who was named Mrs. Atkins was old with graying brown hair that was cut short old lady style. She wore a pink sweater and flowery long skirt. Eh. Suddenly I noticed that everyone was staring at me, waiting for me to sit. I took the seat in the very front of the room, the only chair open for obvious reasons, all the nerds sat in front. You are kidding me. That was just so stereo type High School. And just to make things a little bit worse my next class was Biology, an guess what? The teacher was Ms. Atkins.

I could tell that me being late made Mrs. Atkins not like me already. You know how the first day of school is nothing but rules? Well Mrs. Atkins made me hand out the class syllabus and the lab fee sheet that needed to be signed and paid for by tomorrow. That might not seem that bad but she seemed to see through all the teacher's pets that surrounded me and gave me a creepy smile and pretty much _demanded_ me to pass them out. It was a great opportunity for my new classmates to check me out... the fresh meat.

Other than that Biology wasn't that eventful, just rules and more glares. My next class was Algebra 1. Ha. Like _I_ can do math. Soon that poor teacher will learn _why_ I'm in Algebra 1 and not 2.

Algebra was a disaster, the teacher asked us to do simple problems to see where are level of ability is at after she talked to us about the rules and my dyslexia made all the numbers out of order so the first problem looked a little like this, '5=/45c*+x' How do you answer that? Plus that was just wasn't the only thing, the other problems were mixing together. Now I'm sure some genius could figure that out if it's even possible, but hello, I'm not even close to the line of genius. So like I said, _disaster_.

Luckily lunch was right after that because we only had 2 classes in the morning. I was excited because I needed some energy in my body but at the same time I knew that the cafeteria food wouldn't be nearly as good as the close to gourmet food at camp. It's going to be really weird not putting a little bit of my food into a big fire that smells amazing.

And when I walked into the lunchroom and saw all different people sitting together in their little groups at the cute small round tables I started to think about how I never thought I'd be one of those girls that worried about who they sat with because they had no friends. I'm not like those poor girls in the movies, I mean there is _no_ freaking way I am eating my meal on the toilet seat of the girls bathroom like Lindsey Lohan in Mean Girls. (Which by the way is the best quotable movie ever!) But looking around for an empty table I was considering just eating on one of the benches in the hallways.

I walked over to the salad bar because 'Italian Dunkers' that were obviously just hot dog buns with melted cheese on them weren't going to cut it for me. People were staring at me and whispering, 'That's her, that's the new girl.' I wanted to shout, 'Yeah I'm the new girl, can you please get over it?' But I restrained myself because I don't want to be hated on my first day.

Anyways while I was putting tomatoes on my little salad a skinny girl with dirty blonde hair came up to me and perkily said, "Hello! Welcome to Forks!" She sounded like a living, walking commercial. "I'm your next door neighbor, Renesmee Cullen. You can call me Nessie for short, that's my kid name but I prefer Nessa."

She was beautiful, her eyes were a color that I had never seen on anybody else before, she had golden iris's. She was about my height, a little shorter, I'm 5'8. She was pale, but so was everyone else here I was noticing. Her clothes were designer, but they didn't create an outfit that you would see the girls walking on 5th Avenue in New York City wearing. This out fit was pretty chill, but still obviously expensive.

"Um, hi." I said a little bizarrely. "I'm Layla, but I met Jake and Charlie yesterday so you probably already knew that..."

"It's ok, I'm just so glad I finally get to meet you! You're all the buzz around here, and it's going to be nice because I just got here about two weeks ago." She said upbeat.

That didn't really make me feel better, I kind of wanted a friend that knew _someone_ that went this school, then I might actually make more than one friend here. But Nessa didn't exactly seem like the type of person that would let you just drop her as a friend right away.

"Well then it's nice to know someone who's going through the same thing as me." I fake smiled and if she noticed it then she wasn't showing it.

"Exactly what I was thinking! Now if we could just find a place to sit..."

We looked around and finally found a half empty table and sat. Nessa sat across from me and looked plainly at her small sized salad. I squeezed ranch dressing out of those lame little packets they give you, stirred the leafs around and dug in. The salad tasted...salady. It had really big leafs that weren't cut up to well so it was really hard to fit it all in my mouth without looking like an idiot. Nessa was still just _looking_ at her food.

"Uh, are you going to eat that?" I said, but not in a I'm-hungry-and-I-want-that way.

Nessa looked like she was just brought out of a trance, "Yes." She picked up the plastic black fork and speared the lattice, grimacing as she swallowed.

"I take it you don't like it?" I asked.

"Sometimes food isn't that... appealing to me. But I want to be healthy so I eat it anyway." She _looked_ healthy so I guess it was working, but you'd think someone that seems to eat like a bird would be ultra skinny.

"So you came from Long Island right?" Nessa said all of a sudden.

"Yeah, it's a big difference from here. I miss the sun."

"Me too, don't worry. " She started. "Did you live anywhere else before that."

"I lived in the Big City until I was twelve."

"Why did you move?" Wow, this chick was really nosy.

"I..." I blinked, remembering the flames. "My dad, he always wanted wanted me to live there."

"Jacob told me your dad picked Forks out too, I'm not sure if I like your dad's judgment on where to live or not." Nessa giggled but I nervously looked at the ceiling, no thunder erupted so I think we were safe.

I nervously smiled with her, "I don't think I'll be here long though."

"Oh, why not? I need _someone_ here for me."

"Because of Annabeth's work." I couldn't just say 'Because once Zeus and Poseidon stop fighting I'm free to go back!'.

Nessa gave me a confused. "Annabeth is my brother's wife. My brother is Percy by the way."

"Oh alright."

"So why did you come here too?" I asked her.

"I haven't seen my grandpa in forever, and Jake and I have been working on a long distance relationship. You see the rest of my family lives in Alaska, there wasn't enough room in Charlie's house so it was just me that came along."

"Big family huh?"

"Yeah, what about you?"

_Just a bit_. "I have a lot of aunts and uncles, and cousins."

"That's always nice, it means just that much more love." When they're not trying to kill you...

I gave her a nice smile, if only she really knew.

"So what class do you have next?"

I pulled my schedule out of my pocket and smiled at the class, "I have Foreign Languages: Greek." I told her.

"I have Foreign Languages too but I'm in Russian." Nessa looked a little disappointed by this. "But you seem pretty happy about taking Greek."

"Yeah, I already know a bit." At least I know I'll get an A in _one_ class.

"Well that's helpful, I don't know a word of Russian. Just my luck."

"What do you have after that?" I asked trying to keep this an upbeat conversation.

"Uh, I think P.E."

I took a glance at the schedule, "Same! Well that's one class together."

Renesmee nodded and took another bit of her salad. She swallowed hard and made a face that looked like she wanted to spit it back up.

"So Jacob still wants to hook you up with a friend of ours." She said trying to keep the conversation.

"Yeah, I think he made it his little mission last night." I replied smiling.

"Well, the guy he's trying to get you together with name is Seth. He looks like Jake with the whole totally built thing goin' on and he's from the reservation also. Seth is pretty cool, but he's shy sometimes." Nessa explained.

"Oh, well that was fast." I said blushing a bit. "Like _really_ fast."

Nessa's eyes widened, "Oh I'm sorry Layla! This must be so overwhelming. Seth was going to come over tonight so we just thought... We could cancel if you want?"

"No it's fine, I'll come over for couple hours and say hello, it's no problem." I told her. "It's just that I just got here, like yesterday. I might not even be here for that long, so a relationship might not be the best idea right now."

"I know it's a bit of a rush, but Seth needs a girl, he's... I don't know, I guess it's that he's not a kid anymore." Nessa took a deep inhale through her nose. I had a feeling that there was a lot more history behind Seth than it appeared.

Suddenly Nessa tensed up, she griped her fork so hard it snapped in half. "Are you okay?" I asked her, but she was already standing up, her chair making a loud noise as it was shoved back.

"I-I have to go." She said.

Nessa turned around and fast walked out of cafeteria. _What the heck?_ I thought. That was so random. Did I say something? I didn't think that telling her that maybe hooking me up with the Seth kid would be to hurtful. Maybe "Aunt Flow" was in town and she was just sensitive? I had no clue. My only possible friend was gone, and now I looked like a loser, eating alone when my companion left me abruptly making it look like I was probably a bitch...

In P.E. Nessa stayed as far away as possible from me. She kept her hair down the entire class when everyone else had their hair in ponytails because we ran killers the entire time. Of course gym class was the only one that didn't explain rules all day. Nope, the teacher wanted us to be conditioned. For what I have no clue, but it seemed like it didn't really matter.

Anyway Nessa ran the entire time with her dirty blonde hair flying everywhere, getting in her face as she went back and forth. She was actually fast too, even with the great distraction of her long locks. But every time we stopped for a break she made sure her long bangs covered her eyes. It looked a little emo but at the same time, because of her neon pink sofie gym shorts, you could tell she totally _wasn't_.

I tried to talk to her when we were in the locker room after class but she was in and out in less than two minutes. I didn't know what I did, or what had came over her. I again tried to ask her what was wrong after school in the parking lot, but as I got out of the school's doors she was already pulling out of the lot in her sleek Mercedes Benz.

As I hopped into the Suburban I wondered if I should even _go_ next door to meet Seth, it seemed like it wouldn't matter if she wasn't even going to speak to me. It was weird, a party opportunity was just dangling in front of my eyes, and then in the matter of minutes, in the same freaking lunch conversation, poof. Gone. Good bye normal friends.

Well it's not like I said something wrong, all she did was finish a sentence, and then freak out. _Just keep driving, it was just a party and who knows maybe she'll change her mind about the whole silent treatment shes giving me for no reason._

You'll be fine Layla, I told myself. Gosh when did I get so insecure?

** (insert line here)**

**Third Person's POV:**

Jacob knew something was wrong the moment Nessie slammed the door. He met with her in the middle of Charlie's living room.

"Babe what's wrong?" He asked.

"She is _far_ from normal." She said.

"What happened?" Jacob said to her.

"_This_ is what happened." Renesmee moved her hair away from her face revealing a set of pitch black eyes. "Jacob, she smells like a smelly marker. The tangerine kind where you just want to sit there all day smelling it, but after a while, for me anyway, you just kind of want to see what it tastes like. And the rest of her family? Well lets just say it's like living next to a whole _pack_ of smelly markers."

"So you need to go hunting is what you're saying."

"I most definitely need to go hunting if we're going to be living next to some heavenly smelling people."


	3. I Sorta Meet A Hot Guy

**Short compared to my other chapters. Sorry if you don't like that. Get over it.**

* * *

There was a hard knock on the door, I mean it was _really_ hard, I was upstairs in my room playing with the new camera I found in my desk drawers when I heard it.

"Layla!" Annabeth called up to me.

I put down the shiny new camera and thumped down the stairs to see Jake waiting for me at the door.

"Uh, hi." I said walking to the door.

"Hey, I was wondering if you were still coming over tonight?" Jake looked at his watch. "Or like now."

"Um... I don't think I'm really welcome, I'm pretty sure Nessa doesn't like me." I looked at the floor.

"Yeah, she told me about what happened at lunch and she's really sorry and she really wants you to come over tonight just to hang out with everyone."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"100 percent! Now come on, Seth is there."

"Oh yes, Seth. Nessa told me about him today."

"I'm sorry, sometimes she gets really excited."

"I can see." I looked down at my gray sweatpants and purple tank top, my hair was probably horrific in it's bun on top of my head. "Are you sure you want me to come over?"

"Layla, you already asked me that, _yes_ we want you there."

"Alright, let me just go ask Percy." I turn and walked to the kitchen.

Oh, the kitchen, just where I want to see Percy and Annabeth making out... A look of disgust crossed my face, "Ugh, get a room! I'm goin' next door!"

Percy gave me a thumbs up but was definitely _not_ distracted. I shivered, and walked back to the door where Jake was waiting.

"Layla, you look like you just witnessed something horrific."

"Have you ever seen your brother making out with his wife on the kitchen table?" I asked him.

"Not on the kitchen table, no."

I laughed, and we walked down the porch steps and over to Nessa's house. I noticed that there were only two cars in the driveway, which was weird because through the windows I could see at least 4 people inside that weren't Nessa and Charlie.

"You ready?" Jake asked.

"I think." I told him.

Jake opened the door for me and gestured for me to enter the house. Looking around I saw two couples, a guy leaning over a counter with his back to me and Nessa smiling at Jake. Everyone was older than us, Jacob, Nessa, and I that is. The three guys were about 20, maybe younger, and their girlfriends were even older! Except one, she was probably only a few years older than me bu the others were probably in their 30s like Percy. The three girls were really pretty so you would think that the guys were just with them because their hot, but they looked at each other like Percy and Annabeth look at each other. Totally in love and in a different universe when they gaze in each others eyes.

Jake went over to stand by Nessa and wrapped his arm around her waist. They too looked at each other like they would never dream about leaving each other, as if somehow, they were bounded to each other.

So I stood there awkwardly in the doorway among a bunch of lovey dovey couples. So I have no idea why I didn't see that one coming either. I knew no one there and it was only totally complete that I was the only single on here. Ha.

I took a look around, the house wasn't that different, just more beer cans on the tiny coffee table and a baseball game playing on the TV. I saw a picture of a toddler on the mantle, it was of a little red haired girl. It took me a little while but I finally figured out that it was Nessa. It was weird seeing her so young and still perfect. Her hair was totally different, now. I also noticed that the photo looked a lot older than she was.

It took at least five minutes for my wondering eyes to land on him. He was leaning over the kitchen counter. He turned around and his face had a smile on it. His teeth were white... ish and his eyes were deep brown. His black shirt was tight around his ripped looking chest. He was in shorts. That took me a little while to process because it was cold outside.

He saw me too. His smile dropped. The other guys perked up like they sensed something, they looked from him to me, and back.

"Seth? You okay?" One of the guys said.

Had I done something wrong?


	4. You Hijacked My Mind!

My eyes flashed to the TV trying to avoid the awkwardness of the situation currently at hand. There was a news alert at the bottom of the screen saying violent seas and storms will be damaging to any houses near or on the coast. People are advised to stay home. School tomorrow was canceled due to winds causing the siding of the building to break off.

Anger rose up to my face, they were at again. Now they were here, the place I was sent to get away from them. I turned around and reached for the door, swinging it open, probably looking like a brat. Before I got the chance to slam it behind me, Jake was there with Nessa at his side.

"Layla, please don't leave." He said sounding desperate.

My eyes traveled to the kid who I think is named Seth, "Well I'm obviously not wanted here. I'll see you when I see you Jake, thanks for inviting me anyway."

I tried not to slam the door when I left, but I did manage to slam the door of the falling apart Suburban. I jammed the keys into the ignition, not caring about how much trouble I'd get in with Percy or Annabeth. Probably both. Especially Annabeth cranked up on her pregnancy hormones. I carefully reversed out of the driveway and then sped forward not caring about the speed limit. There was no one on the roads, everyone was bundled up in their houses trying to get away from the storm.

_Just drive._ I told myself. The rain pounded the windshield so hard that the whippers could barley keep up. I couldn't see anything, but I kept looking for a sign that would lead me to the beach, to an ocean. I soon found myself passing a sign that told me I was on a Native American reservation. Five minutes later I saw the beach but kept driving, I decided to go to the cliffs a mile in the distance. That would give me more privacy, more room to think.

I parked the Suburban on the shoulder of the road. I crawled outside. I didn't even bother to put the hood of my rain jacket up to look normal. I ran across the road and into the woods that surrounded it. I climbed my way through the ferns and fallen trees, looking for some kind trail.

I reached the edge. 200 feet down the ocean was sprawled out in front of me, churning in all of it's madness. Massive waves smashed against the cliffs at full speed. The wind ripped my hair around, probably making me look like an insane child. It helped that I felt a little insane right then too.

Lightning crackled through the air, the sound of a tree snapping in half coursed through the rain. Seconds later thunder boomed over head almost splitting my ear drums in half.

"Can't you two just get over yourselves?" I screamed seemingly at nothing, but lightning fractured another tree and thunder blasted over an imaginary intercom.

"Layla! What are you doing?" Someone yelled through the rain from behind me, it wasn't the sound of my father, or Zeus for that matter.

I looked behind me to Jake and that Seth kid lurking from the trees shirtless and in shorts. They didn't look half bad in their... outfits, but how they could stand the cold in just shorts I had no idea.

"You shouldn't be here." I said to him.

"_I_ shouldn't be here? What about you? Are you crazy? Your standing on the edge of a cliff! Was seeing a possible friend that bad?" He asked.

"It's not you. Or Seth." I started as Jake walked closer to me. "I am emotionally compromised right now and so are they. So if you can excuse me."

Just as he was about to ask who "They" were, I waved him good bye as I walked backwards right off the cliff, falling down, down, down, down.

* * *

Unfortunately Jake was fast and grabbed my arm. Gravity had already taken a hold of me though, so we fell together. His bare chest was boiling my skin through my jacket. He pulled me close to him and tried to get him under me so he would brake the fall for me. But I new that this fall wouldn't kill me. Ever. So I struggled to get under him so my powers would work on both of us.

Epic fail. Jake was strong. We landed side to side. I had never jumped 200ft into water before. There are no cliffs at Camp. I had _not_ jumped off the St. Louis Arch into 7 feet of water like Percy. Not that he bragged, he didn't want to give me any ideas. No, I get my dirt on Percy from Conner and Travis Stoll. Anyways, when we hit the water it felt like I had been punched really hard, but nothing else. I can't say the same for Jake though, he looked like he was momentarily knocked out but quickly regained consciousness. I formed a bubble around him before he got the chance to look for me.

All my senses were alive in the freezing cold water. My other half, the godly one, was kicking in. About five feet away I saw another figure plunging into the water. Just as a wave was going to crumple him into the cliff I formed a bubble that you can't just punch through to break.

It was Seth. He and Jake followed me into the water. How stupid were they? They both were looking at me really freaked out. I looked at myself remembering that I was perfectly dry and breathing regularly.

Not even a couple days here and I had already blown our cover.

I merged Jake and Seth's bubbles together. They didn't know what to do, they were still getting used to the fact that they were trapped inside a bubble. I don't blame them, being trapped in a bubble isn't all that fun. Trust me, Percy did it to me once and since he's more powerful, I couldn't break through.

I was just about to control the current to carry them to the beach so I could finally just get rid of them when my father's voice boomed in my head.

_Layla Brice, do you understand the immense situation that I am in? You could have gotten killed! _

My head felt like it was going to explode. He's only done this to me twice before and only when his godly butt is pissed off.

"No, I do not know because no one ever tell me what the heck is going on!" Jake and Seth gave me weird thoughts because you could barley understand what I was saying underwater but it still looked like I was talking to myself.

_And it shall remain that way, but you do not at any cost insult Zeus at a time when he's already in the mood to turn you to ashes._

"And why doesn't he? You move me here so you guys could fight over on the east coast. Now your here where I'm suppose to be _safe_."

_We will not having this conversation at this time._

"You're kidding me right? _You_ were the one who broke into my head for the third time, earning me a massive headache and _you're_ the one telling me we're not going to have this conversation?"

He stayed silent. My point was proved. He practically made my brain collapse on itself just to tell me that I had angered the King of the gods. Thanks dad, as if I already didn't know that.

I started to swim to the beach, making the current bring my bubbled up friends with me. I had come here to let my anger out not to make it worse. If I could get away from the gods, I would do it in a heart beat. But they follow you around to make your life complicated, they make sure you never forget your other life. Your other half.

It took about five minutes to get to the beach area. I told the current to slowly lead them shallower. When the water was only four feet deep I popped their bubble making them swim the rest in.

I was running before they even close to shore.

* * *

My Nikes were working hard to push through the thick wet sand. My name was being shouted out from behind me. "Layla come back!" They said. I didn't look back. I was thinking of how to pace myself so I could get to my car and speed back "home" before they could catch up to me.

I hit the road at a run, my legs were already feeling softer, more jello-ish. I was so out of shape for this. But I didn't stop. Not when I heard howls in the distance, or when lightning seemed to be following me, when the waves got bigger than they were before. Words echoed in my head from years ago when my father last hijacked my mind and told me I was too headstrong, that it would get me killed or in serious trouble someday.

My laces came undone, my baggy jeans got in the way. I stumbled down on the cracked pavement. My skin tore on my palms and chin. My jeans had big holes in them that I wouldn't be able to sew back together or patch up.

I had to keep running though, if I kept up my pace I could be at the truck in five or so minutes. But something held me down. Not like my body was being forced down by someone or that in a metaphorical way, but my head just didn't want me to keep going. It wasn't exhaustion.

_Come on Layla, get up, go "home", get in the car and drive._ Slowly I stood up leaving my laces untied. My legs walked for fifteen minutes until I saw the dark blue Suburban with the rear view mirrors ducted taped on in all it's glory. My hand searched for my keys in my pocket. Found.

I managed to jog over and climb into the truck. My fingers put the key in the ignition and turned. The engine sounded like a whining horse, but eventually roared to life. Just as I was about to pull out and do a U-turn mist blocked my view and Annabeth's unsmiling face showed up in front of me.

"Where are you!" She demanded.

"I'm on my way home don't worry." I told her trying to sound calm.

Annabeth frowned, "Percy's angry too."

"Am I really that easy to read?" I asked.

"Yes, your not good at hiding your emotions. Neither is Percy though, it must be hereditary."

"I'll be home in a while ok?" I said ignoring her later comment of the hereditary thing.

"Alright, but no detours."

"No problem there."

I waved the mist away. Finally. Alone.

Once I got "home" I didn't bother to say hi to Annabeth and Percy, I marched up to my room and opened the window. I started over to the little fountain/waterfall in the corner of the room, picked it up, and threw it out the window.

I watched as the cement turned into a puddle in the wet grass. It was being returned to the giver of the gift.

* * *

**Quicker update, longer chapter :) If you haven't noticed, Layla is a major piss off. Sorry for any spelling mistakes... I fail at spelling and spell check sometimes doesn't recognize my crazy assumptions! -Aims**


	5. Bad Weather

**Jacob's POV:**

My four legs couldn't carry me fast enough through the woods it seemed. It felt like I would never get the Nessie's house. I told Seth to find the pack and tell them about Layla. I was still getting over the fact that she made bubbles around us and then looked like she was having a heart attack when she started to talk to herself underwater. Also the fact that she never got wet was hitting me pretty hard too.

The woods started to thin out, I could see were they ended. There were two houses that stood next to each other. The one on the left would take me to Nessie. I phased into human form and put my shorts on.

I walked around to the front, and hopped up the porch steps, not knocking as I walked in the door. Charlie was asleep on the couch, the party was gone, just the mess was left behind. I could hear Nessie breathing upstairs. My legs carried me up the creaky stair, but my head was already there.

I stepped into the room that used to be Bella's, it looked almost exactly the same, but touches of Reneesme lingered everywhere. There she was, staring at the ceiling, wondering why she is the way she is.

"You're staying with me tonight." I said quietly, sending her mind back to the real world.

"What do you mean?" Nessie sat up and looked at me with those big golden eyes.

"Your neighbors... it'll be just for the night, I promise."

"What did you do?" She questioned.

"_I_ didn't do anything. It was Seth who made me follow her, and _she_ was the one who decided to jump of a freaking cliff."

Layla jumping 200 feet into the treacherous water reminded me to much of Bella.

"So shes suicidal now?"

"No it's just... it's hard to explain. All I'm asking is you to stay one night at the house."

Nessie got up from the bed and grabbed her cell phone and stood by the window with her back to me.

"What are you doing-" She held a finger up to tell me to be quiet.

"Hello Alice," She started, her voice paused waiting for Alice to respond, "No, were fine, I was just wondering if you saw anything coming about our neighbors... You_ didn't_ know we had new neighbors?...Wait- don't!... Hi, dad... Everything is fine, I think... _No_, do _not_ come down here...Why? Well because I came to Forks for a break from you guys!..."

As the conversation progressed, Nessie seemed to have no luck convincing Edward to not come down from Alaska.

"Give me the phone," I said, she reluctantly handed me the cell phone knowing how much her dad and I don't exactly _mix_. "Edward."

"Jacob," He started, voice ice cold, just like his heart.

"Look, if anyone's going to come it should be you and Alice, no one else. You need to hack into their minds and Alice will get on their good side."

"What the heck is even going on Jacob." He asked steely.

"Once you get here, you'll see, it's all the explaining you'll need."

In the background I could hear the opening of a garage door and the sound of an engine turning on.

"What about Charlie?"

"You'll have to stay somewhere else, use a different car. Come at night, he'll be fast asleep."

"Tell me something I don't know Jacob. You need to send him away for the weekend, just until we figure out whats going on."

"And how am I suppose to do that?"

"Just tell your dad to bring him on a fishing trip somewhere."

"They can't go fishing, the weather is crazy!"

"Well then figure it out Jacob." Edward said steely.

Then line went dead, he hung up on me.

"Alice and Edward are coming."

Nessie but her hands in her face.

"I don't want them here." She said.

"Well that makes two of us."

"Shut up Jacob, they're going to take me back with them you know that right?"

Actually I did, Edward and Bella only let Nessie come down to Forks for the year because they thought she would be safe with me and the rest of the pack. So now, they'll probably make up something stupid to say because Bella to much of an over protective, paranoid, ice cold, mom.

Nessie can't stand her mom, just like any other 16 year old girl.

"I'll do everything in my power to keep you here."

She looked up at me, trying to hide her doubt, "Come on Jacob, let's just go to your place, okay?"

**Layla's POV:**

I woke up the next day to Percy stomping around the house, just as pissed as us. He had a life too, he left it, and now everything is just too insane for him to process. I heard the TV turn on and the sound of a news reporter talking about the crazy weather.

I didn't want to move. I wasn't motivated to go to school today. Not one bit. Thank the gods that school was canceled. I should stay in bed and sleep more. My curiosity always gets the best of me and I stumbled out of bed and down the stairs still in my pajamas, hair and teeth unbrushed. My eyes traveled to the clock on the wall, it was earlier than I thought it was, outside it was still dark and the clock read 5:45.

"Couldn't sleep?" Percy asked while sipping coffee, his hair was going in every direction and he had on blue pajama pants and a white t-shirt.

"Some how no."

We just sat there, listening to the news.

"The Pacific North West has been in one massive storm cell for a day now, winds ranging up to 60 mph, sightings of up 30 foot waves, hail, and lighting are all apart of this storm, tornado's are now a factor after storm chasers spotted the beginning of one yesterday evening. This bizarre weather doesn't seem to let up. And also back on the East coast storms are raging, even small hurricanes are showing up on radar." Says a small Asian women dressed in a red business suit.

"Also, seismic activity along the San Andres Fault has been rising, residents of California are cautioned and warned." The women adds.

"Wow Wendy, historic times we are in now." The news anchor says.

Percy mutes the TV.

"Do you even know what they're fighting about?" I ask quietly.

"I think I have an idea... it happened a long time ago. I suspect the matter came up during the summer solstice meeting." He said shaking his head. "It's amazing how they break they're vows or forget about some law... but they never forget when and who broke it."

"And your not going to tell me what you think they're fighting about are you?" I asked.

"Nope, but I'm guessing Zeus won't bring out the big guns until winter, when lightning is more deadly because of all the static in the air."

"If he makes a mistake dads going to rip apart Cali isn't he?" I said gently.

"Go back to bed, I need to make a call." Percy told me, not answering my question.

Because we both knew the answer.

**

* * *

**

I laid in bed for an hour. Thinking. Contemplating. Procrastinating. I tossed and turned and almost got the nerve to Iris message Rex, but he's in school, or at least that's what he said he might be doing last month. Getting out of camp sounded like an amazing idea to him. But at that point I didn't know I'd be moving across the country. Away from my best friend that has been a year rounder with me for almost six years. I didn't want to be lonely, Rex was the only one who understood me. I had off and on feelings for him, we never really expressed our feelings for each other, but somehow we talked about everything else.

How we either wanted to leave camp or just wanted to stay here forever. Out here, in the real world, I never had to live up to Percy's legacy, I was never compared to him, but at camp people knew what I was going through, and enjoyed hanging out with me.

But Rex has no where to go, just like me. In that way we were always connected. He always snuck into my cabin at night just to talk. I was the only one staying there, I liked the company, I hated being alone with Percy's fountain and my little water fountain.

Rex has always tried to teach me archery, he thought it was going to be really hard because Percy sucks at it, but I'm pretty good at it. The only secret is that on my first quest I made a deal with his dad, Apollo, that if I'd do something for him, he'd make me decent at archery.

I sat there just thinking about Rex when I heard the doorbell ring. I slowly sat up, it was still really early, and with all the bad weather, who the heck would be at my door? I stalked down the stairs and unlocked the door.

There he was, tall, tanned, in a North Face raincoat, "Hey, um, I'm Seth..."

Not exactly the first person I expected to be on my doorstep.

* * *

**Sorry that took so long, not many reviews, not that much motivation. Oh um, thing to keep in mind: the deal between Apollo and Layla.**

**-Aims  
**


	6. Hey There Miss Devious

So what do I do? Slam the door? Invite him in? Tell him I need to pee and he should just really go home? I mean seriously, I put the guy in a freakin' bubble and now he's here. Standing in my doorway, waiting for me to answer. Was he here to find out who we were? Was he a demigod too? I hadn't seen him at camp so that was highly unlikely.

He was staring at me in a weird way. Awkward.

"Can I come in?"

"No!" I said quickly, "I mean, my brother clogged the toilet and it reeks in here, and my prego sister-in-law is getting all hormonal on him for it so I think it's better if you just... come back another time... I'm sorry Seth." There was no clogged toilet, Annabeth was in bed, Percy was still talking on the phone in the kitchen with someone.

"Oh," He said, he was obviously disappointed.

"I'm Layla by the way... maybe we'll catch up sometime later. You go over to Charlie's a lot with Jake right?"

"Yeah,"

"Well, I see you sometime in the near future. Goodbye." I said.

"Bye Layla," He stuck out his hand for me to shake, I grabbed it.

His hands were rough and huge, mine fit perfectly in his, his hand practically covered mine. They were hot, the way Jake was when we were falling into the water yesterday. Now that I think about it, last night all the guys kind of looked the same. Big, tan, Indian, buzz cut hair, looking like they were on steroids, and now there was the warm factor. Kind of like a human teddy bear.

I took my hand back, and put it on the door, "Bye... again." He said.

"Bye."

He didn't move. Slowly I started to shut the door, but he still just stood there. The door was completely closed. I stood there for a little while, waiting for footsteps to go down the porch stairs. I didn't hear anything. I looked through the little eye hole. There he was, chillin'. Looking pretty starstruck for some weird reason. Pretty sure he's creepin' me.

I walked away from the door. He'll be gone in a few minutes. I went to the kitchen, the pot of coffee that Percy had made earlier was still there. I poured myself a cup. Coffee wasn't exactly good for demigods since we already couldn't sit still, but some how it never did anything to me like that. Which is good.

I looked in the fridge to see if there was anything to snack on. Nothing. We barely any milk, but no cereal. At this point, I wanted school, I was so bored, and all there was to think about was the fight between Poseidon and Zeus. Which wasn't exactly the most pleasant thing to think about. I'd rather be thinking about trying not to get in trouble with Ms. Brice and decoding words because it's just alphabet soup sometimes.

I walked up to my room and laid on the bed. I sat there for a while, thinking way to hard in way to many ways. I'd think of Seth, then Rex, and then the two all over again. Why the heck would Seth randomly come over to my house so suddenly? Did Rex really have feelings for me and I'm just to scared to realize it?

I had a flash back to when Rex and I where at the archery range and he was telling me about how he couldn't believe that _he_ taught _me_ to be actually pretty okay at archery. I mean I could hit the target and every once in a while get the arrow on the bulls eye, which was amazing to him because Percy was such a dud at it. I wanted to feel happy but guilt washed over me. He didn't teach me how to shoot a bow and arrow, which he thinks he did. If he ever knew the real reason why I was good at archery and other things, he'd hate me. Maybe seriously injure me.

No one but me know why I succeeded at the things Rex gave me lessons about. It was exactly something I was everyone to know. It's embarrassing, and as time has passed, even a little scary. I couldn't imagine what would happen if Rex, my brother, or my father ever knew what went down. Hell. That's what.

My mind wandered on the consequences but my eyes closed. I was tired from an hour of nothing and waking up too early. My mind rested.

A scream jolted me awake from a dreamless sleep.

* * *

A long lump appeared on my arm. It was my sword, it appeared when I needed it and stayed invisible on my body until I drew it so nobody knew it was there. It also started out in knife form until I push a button on the hilt that extends it to full length. Sometimes it does it on it's own if the situation is that serious. Like it can read my mind. The sword was a gift from Annabeth after I completed my first quest, she modeled part of it off of her Yankees cap because I was always so mesmerized by it when I was smaller.

But I didn't draw it just yet. Instead, I sat up slowly from my bed, the scream still ringing in my ears. It was Annabeth's. It had to be. What was this, like day three and we were already in trouble? I crept out of my room looking down the empty hallway making sure it remained that way. The coast was clear, my feet slide across the creaky wooden floor and evenly as noisy steps. I was being more careful than usual. Probably because I was in my house. Well, sorta my house, not even a home. Oh yeah, that because my home was halfway across the country. Minor detail.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw a shadow coming from the inside of the doorless kitchen. I gripped to the side to the wall, inching closer to the kitchen entry. I held my breath as I gripped the hilt of my sword. I quickly turned the corner while dressing the button, seeing the celestial bronze blade grow to it's full length.

Standing ready for a fight I blushed deep red when a freckled face surrounded by bright, fire red curls looked my way.

"Jeez Rachel you scared the crap out of me!" I said frustrated.

I looked around the small kitchen, Annabeth was sitting at the little table not looking very happy either. You see, once Rachel was relieved of her duties as oracle by this other equally as crazy chick a couple years after the war, she took a few tries at Percy. Which is understandable, newly single, boys were off limits for two years, they had a past, apparently Percy is pretty cute, I get it. But Annabeth has been on guard ever since, even though they're married, shes newly pregnant, and Rachel is in the middle of a serious relationship with Conner Stoll. Oh, I know right? Conner Stoll? Yeah, who ever he'd be in a serious relationship, let alone with _Rachel_ of all people.

"Hello to you too Layla." Rachel said.

"Wait, why did you scream Annabeth?" I asked her.

"Because when I came down for some pizza rolls _she_ had already eaten them all!"

At that moment I had a strange feeling that the people in this house ran on Totino's Pizza Rolls. Only in America...

"So you screamed bloody murder, making me think that there was something actually dangerous in the house?"

"Uh, _yeah_. She scared the crap out me too, she just let herself in and ate all of our good food."

"Hey! It was a long trip here and I couldn't rely on gas station snacks to keep me filled up. It was a long drive from New York!" Rachel said defending herself.

"Wait, Rachel, why are you even here?" I said to her.

"Where's Percy?" I rolled my eyes. Over the years Percy has told me that it's been getting harder and harder to get a simple answer out of this girl. I see his frustration.

"He's at the grocery store getting milk." Annabeth replied.

"Then I'll wait until he's back." She sat down in the chair across from Annabeth and crossed her arms.

"You're joking right? You can't just tell us now?"

Percy was definitely right, she's becoming impossible...and we do need more milk, thank the gods that he went out in the storm to get it instead of making me do it.

"So what are we suppose to do? Twiddle our thumbs until he gets back?" Annabeth asked.

"What else is there to do in this po-dunk little town?" Rachel looked over me twice. "Layla, put the sword away. Oh, and by the way, you've aged nicely since five years ago, I bet every boy is swooning over you, maybe even A-"

"THANKS for the compliments Rachel." I said quickly to stop her from saying her next word. I smiled then glared at her, she had a glimpse in her eye that said she knew what happened.

Rachel could still see bits and pieces of the future, once you've become the Oracle of Delphi, part of her never leaves you. In a way it's a life thing. It's also the only reason my Rachel is the only one who could possibly know my secret. And her, driving all the way here from New York told me she had nothing but bad news.

* * *

**Hey guys, if you haven't already figured it out already, I'm bad updating this thing, there's a lack of motivation. :/ Well anyway, hope you enjoyed it! Review if you want! Expect a new chapter in a month or so? Maybe sooner because the idea wheel has been turning! -Aims  
**


	7. Scowls and Howls

We waited around for what seemed to be forever, but was really only like twenty minutes until Percy came back with milk _and_ cereal. Plus more OJ, pizza rolls, oreos, peanut butter, you know, the stuff the house _didn't_ come with.

He was shocked to waltz into the kitchen and find us all sitting around the table looking upset. Well, minus Rachel, a self satisfied smirk was fixed on her face. Percy looked genuinely surprised to see Rachel at the house.

"Well that was fast." He said.

"No hello? Again? What do I have to do just to get a lousy hello or hi around here?" Rachel said with pretend hurt.

"What do you mean '_That was fast_'?" Annabeth asked Percy, ignoring the red head.

"Well I called her this morning, I asked if she could come over for a few days. How did you get over here so fast?" Percy said puzzled. "Wait, you haven't been shadow traveling with Nico again have you?"

"_No_, as a matter a fact, I drove here, when you called I had just gotten into the state. I left the day you left to come here."

"Rachel said she has something to tell you." I said annoyed.

"Let's hear it Freckles." Annabeth said in a tight voice.

"Actually, I'll show you."

Rachel reached into the back pocket of her dark blue jeans and pulled out three folded pieces of paper. She opened the first one, there was a quick sketch on it in black pencil, the creases in the paper distorted the drawing. It showed two beautiful people in mid run somewhere in the middle of a thick forest. One had short pixie like hair, a girl, about eighteen. The other was of a guy the same age but with wild hair about three strokes ahead of the girl. They both looked determined to get to their destination, or win the race, whatever they were running for.

"I saw them just after you guys left with Hermes. They look human but... I don't know, it didn't feel right in the vision."

"Do you think they could be monsters?" Annabeth asked.

"I have no idea, some monsters use a human disguise, there's no way to tell in a vision. But they were running impossibly fast." Rachel responded.

"Unclaimed demigods? With the war the gods might have gotten a little preoccupied." I offered, Percy and Annabeth exchanged a glance that told me they knew something and really didn't want to tell me no matter how much I thought it was annoying when they did that.

"Maybe, it would make sense." Percy said.

Rachel moved the picture aside and placed another sketch next to it. Again it was a guy and a girl, but this time I knew who it was.

"That's Jacob and Nessa." I said.

Jacob looked mad, almost upset, and Nessa looked worried in the picture. Jacob had his body placed protectively in front of Nessa's. They were looking around as if they were expecting to pop out and say 'BOO!'.

"Nessa... the neighbors grand-daughter?" Annabeth asked.

"Yeah, that guy, Jacob, is her boyfriend."

"Well, whatever you do, don't get too close to that Jacob guy. When I saw this, I could tell something bad was going to happen, I could _feel_ his anger, like he was about to explode or something. The vision ended before I got a glimpse of what would happen with him." Rachel told me.

She unfolded the third picture. It was Seth, leaving our front porch. "I almost crashed my flipin' car when this one came. Seth is his name right? He's like the Jacob guy, but he spaced out when he left your house. The look reminded me of the way these two look at each other. So all I'm going to say is either give him a shot or stay away."

* * *

**Jacob's POV:**

"Wait what?" Reneesme asked Edward.

We were gathered around the treaty line, Nessie was on the our side of the line and Edward and Alice were on the other side. It was night, the wind was raging all around us, the rain and wind whipped everyone's hair around, soaking it. The weather has been crap lately, I haven't seen it this bad in years.

"A new one came today," Alice said, "Her name is Rachel, we know she's human because I can see her. And she smells _way_ different than the other three."

"But she's different." Edward added.

"She _saw_ us coming. And you two leaving Charlie's in a panic, plus Seth leaving their house. She sketched them all down to show them. To warn them."

"Why so they can get the heck out of here?" I asked.

"No." Edward said. "So they're prepared for an attack. If there is one."

"They've been attacked by vampire's before?" Nessie asked.

"No, but they've been in some sticky situations with creature's worse then our kind. I read it in older woman's mind. Annabeth. When Rachel warned them about us they all thought about their past attacks."

"And we some research on Percy Jackson on our way over here." Alice jumped in. "About 18 or so years back he was the kid who jumped off the St. Louis Arch, was accused of kidnapping his mother when they lived in New York City, then found innocent when he fought a guy in California who had held him hostage and under a threat. All when he was just twelve years old and in the process of a month or so. Annabeth was there through all this too. Both of them, have a record of being kicked out of schools for various reasons, fires, destruction of the buildings... These people are far from what they seem like."

"What about Layla?" Nessie said.

"All we could find was that her mother died in an apartment fire in New York City." Edward said.

"What caused the fire?"

"Lightning strike..."

"What did you find when you were reading their minds?" I asked him.

Edward stayed silent.

"Tell them."

"It was unbelievable. Figuratively and literally. A whole other world is out there, right under our noses. They kept thinking about their parents, and some kind of huge disagreement between Percy's dad and his brother." Edward went silent. "The unbelievable part is that Percy and Layla think their father is Poseidon, Annabeth's mother is Athena, and Rachel is the old oracle. They think they're descendents of Greek gods."

No one said anything, even me. All I could think about was either they were crazy, on some hard drugs, suffered one to many concussions, or... there really was another world out there. Something outside messed up creatures like us. No one believes in vampires or werewolves. Only in the movies. But here we are.

So if everyone thinks _we're _myths, that means the Greek gods can be real too. But wait, this is all happening too fast.

"If these people have fought 'monsters' before then why would they come _here? _I remember Layla telling me that her _father_ picked out Forks for a place to live, why would a supposedly 'god' pick a place to settle his children down in a town that has a history of returning vampires?"

"Maybe they didn't know. Maybe they don't know exist, just like we never knew about them" Alice said.

Then something hit me. Hard. "Poseidon is the god of water or something right?"

"Actually, it's the sea."

"Oh, whatever." I quickly said. "Yesterday night, when Seth and I followed Layla after she ran off, she jumped off a cliff on the rez. The same one Bella jumped off of actually..."

"Wait, my mom jumped off a cliff?" Nessa said.

"Not important." I said. "Anyways, I jumped after her, but she kept fighting me so she could take the impact, and not in a suicidal way, like she was trying to protect me. When we were in the water, the waves were to strong for a small, skinny girl for her to be swimming in, but she was fine, and the weirdest part was, she put Seth and I in _bubbles_. She was outside in the water, perfectly dry, as if she was still on land." I cringed as I remembered how much pain Layla looked like she was in when she started gripping her head and screaming in the ocean.

"Jacob, you sound crazy."

"Aren't we all?"

"He's not lying." Edward said.

Edward and I still weren't very fond of each other. Especially now that I imprinted on his daughter, his _only_ daughter. He thought he could get rid of me when he married Bella. That lasted really long. All I have to say is that he should have waited until she was changed. But then again, Nessie wouldn't be alive, and I'd go the rest of my life without her. Fate has it's ways of changing things up.

"Yes it does." Edward said.

"_Stop_ doing that."

"You practically called me here to pick someones brain!"

"Well not on me!"

"You two are the most annoying people on the planet." Nessa said.

Everyone was silent. Usually Alice would say something in this kind of moment, but she was quiet, looking into space.

"What does she see?"

"It's Rachel." Alice said snapping out of it. "They know we're here, they know we're not human."

"They're preparing for us, like we're suppose to attack them." Edward said, "But that's what they're used to, non human things attacking them."

A howl ripped through the air.

"That wasn't anyone from the pack." Jacob said.

* * *

**Not very fond of this chapter... but at least updated in only a week! That's personal best for this story which is usually updated like once every 2 month. Sorry about that guys. Anyways, the next chapter might take a little while, just a heads up. Thanks for reviewing and reading this thing! -Aims**


	8. The Guy and Girl

**Okay well I got this up in month... a lot slower than I had hoped but I've been having some computer problems and I honestly suck at writing this kind of chapter, I get way too ahead of myself. Anyways, it's been raining and storming like crazy here at home and I thought since it was storming in the story, it would be a good idea to finish up the chapter! Enjoy! -Aims**

* * *

"Are they coming?" Percy asked Rachel.

"You know," Rachel started, "It doesn't just come to me when I want it too, I've gone months without having a glimpse of something remotely in the future."

There we were, sitting outside of the house in the pouring rain, Mrs. O' Leary panting up a storm, waiting for whatever tried to befriend me to come and might try to have us for lunch. At least that's what we thought. Rachel had a vision telling her that the people in the pictures she showed us knew what we were, or were still trying to figure it out.

Percy called for Mrs. O' Leary right away for extra back up because, after a lot of arguing, Annabeth wasn't allowed to fight now that she was with child. It pissed her off, but it's not like she wanted anything happening to the baby either. I still think even if she was close to her due date and she'd fight. Anyways, Annabeth did not approve of the family pet being here because now we were just _asking_ for some death match against something we don't even know what the heck they are... which makes no sense at all.

I agree with her too, I'm not the biggest fan of fighting believe it or not. I know, I know, 'But your brother is such a great fighter!'. Newsflash, I'm not my brother. Half the time I think he's only got such a great legacy is because he's invincible, born at the right/wrong time, born destined for greatness or doomed for death. Others, like me and every other organism out there, weren't so lucky. I had to cheat my way into society while Percy the Great over there with the hell hound and beautiful pregnant wife almost had it made.

Getting back on subject, I didn't want to fight whatever we were throwing our self's at when it was only the third day in Forks. So I tried to slip into the house and eat a couple pizza rolls. Stress eating. Layla the Pitiful stress eats a lot... I almost had my hand on the screen door when Mrs. O' Leary set out a low growl. It was quiet compared to the howl she let out earlier because she was so happy to see Percy, but now she was on protective mode. And she had every reason to because right as I turned towards the woods there was abig whooshin front of Percy.

He took a step back reaching for his back pocket. "What was that?" He said.

Twigs in the surrounding woods snapped all around. Something moved too fast to see. I stayed on the porch facing the woods, frozen. Not wanting to move. I could feel more than one pair of eyes on me. That's a creepy feeling you know, you don't know who or what is looking at you but you can just _sense_ it. No one dared to move just like me. Mrs. O' Leary remained silent on Percy's hand never left his pocket.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the sounds around me so I could pick up on where something was. Besides the family pet's loud breathing there was the leafs getting pounded by rain. It was hard trying to hear through the constant precipitation. My eyes opened. _Straight in front of you_. The invisible lump appeared on my left arm. I took a deep, deep breath. _1, 2, 3,... really this time Layla, you can do it... 1, 2, 3..._ All in one swift motion I reached for my knife, without extending it to full length, and hurled it into the woods blindly. There was a whimper, like a dog, and everything went into motion.

I ran down the steps by Percy's side as three larger than life wolf's launched themselves at Mrs. O' Leary. They were smaller than her yes but there were _three_ of them, they over powered her in seconds, there was the snapping of jaws and then she just disappeared. Not the dead disappeared, the _into the shadows_ disappeared.

I was to busy focusing on Mrs. O' Leary to notice that there was a girl standing in front of us. It was a the girl in the picture, a little older than me, pixie hair, freaking beautiful.

"Percy, Layla," She said calmly.

"How do you know our names?" Percy asked with ice in voice.

I have no idea _why _he asked that, monsters always know your name, Percy hates because they call him by his full name, I laugh, he scowls, that's usually how it goes down.

"We don't want to hurt you." She said.

"How many times have we heard that?" I said with anger bubbling to the surface, just bring it already.

"Just show us your true form and get it over with." Percy said.

I inched close to him moving his hand from his pocket and grabbing the pen, "I got this." I whispered to him.

"Percy I can assure you that I don't want to hurt you."

"Stop with the BS already, what are you?"

"Percy-"

"You know, a good monster would have tried to kill us already, but you must be new, fresh from Tartarus. So I'll give you the low down, as you know I'm Percy Jackson and after I kill you, I might see you again in fifeteen more years because you won't be reforming for while."

That was my cue, I uncapped Riptide (kinda weird since it wasn't my sword) and thrust it into the girl. But she did something I didn't thing a new monster would be able to do, she caught the blade. The only flaw with that was right after her skin made contact with the celestial bronze, she dropped it like it was hot and I sent it straight through her. Clean cut, in and out.

The beautiful girl wasn't yellow dust though. She just stared at her hand that looked like it was burned black, then she looked down to her stomach where I could see all the way through her body and out the other side, there was no in between where intestines and a other organs should be. It was like the sword went through rock. Around the hole in her stomach looked like the logs on a fire, the ones at the bottom that are the hottest and glowing white and orange.

"What the-?" I said.

"Life just keeps getting weirder and weirder." Percy said as he winded up and punched the girl in the face.

She took a couple steps back, clearly still shocked that she had a hole in her. Yeah, I would be too... but I'd be dead. Like she should be. I remembered something then and there as I handed Percy his sword back, in the picture Rachel showed us that the girl was in, there was another guy in it.

"Annabeth?" I yelled, "Gotta knife?"

"Uh...little busy!" I turned around and saw that her and Rachel were surrounded by wolves ready to maul them.

One of the wolves was bleeding in the shoulder, it was probably the one I hit when I threw my knife. Wait, that meant that my knife was somewhere in the woods.

"You can have her, I'm going to help Annabeth and Rachel." I said.

I dashed away without waiting for a reply, I looked around where I threw my knife. Every where I went mud coated the ground in a thick slime, the trees didn't get any less protection from the rain than an open field. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a glimmer of light, I snapped my head around and ran to it. Sure enough, it was my knife, I extended it to full length and raced to help out Annabeth.

I was hoping to take the wolves by surprise but one of them turned to me, I could tell it wanted to jump on my because of the way it's muscles tensed then forcibly relaxed as if it remembered something. The wolf was huge, taller than me with a gray coat but skinner and a bit smaller than the rest of the wolves. I knew that I wouldn't be able to get around it, especially not with them surrounding Annabeth and Rachel.

_Think Layla think_..._the rain!_ I concentrated on the water in puddles and the rain falling around me, building it up until I got just the right amount. I took a short sprint to the left to fake it out, the wolf immediately lunged, as I changed directions I hurled the water into the wolf's eyes.

It worked, for about a split second, you know, until all attention was on me and I found myself having to splash water in all of the wolves faces. Not only was it wearing me out, but it just really annoyed to the wolves. A black wolf just got extremely fed up with me and just lunged, ignoring the blast of water I sent towards him. I felt a huge claw rip through my chest as I thrusted my sword into it's shaggy black coat on the shoulder.

Blood dripped through my shredded gray shirt and the wound burned as flesh was exposed to the air. The black wolf seemed to glare at me and it rolled on the muddy ground in pain, it's left shoulder was limp. I bent over my stomach, trying to protect it with my arm as I rushed over to Annabeth.

"Layla, are you okay?" Annabeth asked looking at my chest.

"I'll be fine." I said with my teeth clenched together.

"No, you're not." Rachel said, "Your shirt is soaked in blood right now, you're probably attracting every other monster on the west side of the country because the ones in the state are already here."

"I don't care, the rain will heal it soon enough, and it's four against 10, wounded or not, I'm helping." I told her.

A russet brown wolf that seemed to be the second biggest started to circle us, baring it's teeth. _We're going to die_. _I've lived to be sixteen, killed in the place my father thought was going to be safe. It's all his fault_._ It's his fault Annabeth and Percy's baby will never live, his fault Rachel will never get married to Conner, his fault I'll never really fall in love and end up half happy. They should have left me to die in the fire with my mom instead of letting me live a life with false hope. It's all Poseidon's fault, I hope Zeus wins._

I looked to my left, Percy was fighting with some guy, the guy from the picture probably. The other guy was moving impossibly fast, beating Percy with every moved he threw at him. The pen was still in his pocket which told me he had been disarmed earlier. You know things are bad when Percy is losing a fight. I watched as my brother was slammed to the ground, the attacker's hand was fixed around his neck. He struggled to get his hand to his pocket and uncap his sword but he wasn't making it. Percy's movements got slower and slower. He was suffocating.

"Percy!" Annabeth yelled.

She sprinted over to him but the russet brown wolf attacked her. Annabeth was pinned, the wolf snapping at her face inches away, she made multiple stabs to it's belly but the wolf seemed unaffected.

_2 vs. 10._

"Layla do something!" Rachel yelled.

Anger burned through my body, my brother was dying, the one was suppose to be invincible, he was going to die from suffocation. I know for a fact that Percy would want to die in a way cooler way, this wasn't how it was going to end, not while I'm still alive.

I hobbled over to Percy who wasn't that far away. He was trying to pry the guy's fingers away from his neck. I raised my sword with both hands, aimed for the guys neck, and sent it down with all the energy I had left. With all the blood dripping from me I was starting to get light headed and the rain wasn't helping, so when the guy sent my sword flying away with lightning fast speed I barely could process it fast enough.

The guy was facing me now, his attention lead away from Percy. His eyes were pitch black with anger. _Just leave them alone and kill me already,_ I wanted to say. The world started to spin and I felt like I was going to throw up. Thunder shook the ground. I wanted to collapse.

Instead something slammed into me and threw me against a tree. I hit my head so hard that black dots danced around in my eyes. I bit down on my tongue and the taste of blood trickled into my mouth. I couldn't move. The guy with the black eyes was standing over me again, looking me in the eyes. He was beautiful, just like the girl, they were probably a couple and didn't appreciate me stabbing her. The contours of his face were perfect, no acne, and he was deathly pale. He looked like he was trying to restrain himself from something. He knelt next to me, his face was close to me. He felt cold, it was almost like I could feel it coming off of him.

"What are you?" He asked.

He should already know this, he should stop playing dumb because it's not making this process any better. I gathered the blood in my mouth and spit in straight in his face.

His nostrils flared. Blackness started to creep around my vision. The guy shot to my neck. Just as he was about to dig in and rip me to shreds, he stopped and looked confused. Out of no where a wolf came behind him, got him in his teeth and threw him away from me.

I didn't see anything else. The blackness surrounded me. Was this how being dead felt like?


	9. Just Go

**Ok this chapter may have a lot of mistakes because I'm in a hurry and didn't proof read it, I'll probably edit it later I promise. This is a longer chapter and maybe a little confusing, sorry! If you get bored then please, please, please get through it! Review if you want to! Thanks! -Aims**

* * *

I felt the water raining down on me and being surrounded by it as well. Someone dumped me in it. It was freezing cold. My eyes fluttered open and I gasped for air. One of the first things that registered was that I was soaking wet. _Ew_, I thought, whenever Percy or I were wet unintentionally it meant we were weak, that our powers were failing us.

My vision was fuzzy but I saw four blobs hovering above me. I was in a bath tub and the shower was pouring down on me. Probably to help me heal. I remembered blacking out and feeling like I was about to die, but that was about it. My head throbbed and I had bit all the way through my tongue. The water slowly got warmer and I noticed it was stained red with blood. I tried to dry myself but I was still soaked.

Someone reached down and held my hand, I returned to dryness. Percy was there. My eyes cleared up, I was able to make out the faces around me. Percy, Annabeth, Rachel... Seth? What the heck was he doing there? Did he see the fight? Could he see through the mist?

I sunk into the water, closing my eyes again. A lot of things were happening and at the moment I didn't want to be in a bath tub full of water, I wanted to be in the ocean. I wanted to be swimming back at camp. If I had stayed there none of this would have happened. I'm less safe here than over there. Why did my dad even bother moving me here? He must have known that there were giant wolves and super monsters living here. I wanted to scream at him again, even if it felt like my brain was going to explode.

**Jacob's POV:**

Some how a majority of us ended up in Layla's upstairs bedroom. The rest of the pack were guarding the house. Seth was planted at the side of the bathtub that Layla was. Alice and Edward waited outside the bathroom door.

Some people are a little bit crazy and some people are just extremely paranoid. Layla and her family definitely qualify for the paranoid part. Once I dragged Seth off of Edward and got him calm enough to phase into human form, the ginger was the most convinced out of all of them that we were... sort of human. She got Percy and Annabeth to calm down, saying something about _the mist_ or whatever that is. I got everyone except Sam and Leah to phase back. Sam was still pissed about his shoulder wound that wasn't healing and Leah... well, when _isn't_ Leah pissed off?

We had to come to _some_ kind of truce because Seth was freaking out and it looked extremely weird. He had only really talked to her once and as far as her brother knew, they had barely even met. So a guy almost in tears over a girl that he had only known for a total of two seconds isn't the easiest thing to explain.

It also looks a little creepy.

But there we were, stuffed into a tiny bathroom looking at girl that's blood stained the water red and intsa-dried off after her brother touched her. Layla opened her eyes for a few seconds then closed them again. She was conscious, just maybe not ready to face what was going on. And honestly, _all_ of us weren't, we still had no idea what the heck just happened. All we knew is that we were squeezed into a little room off of some barely existent peace.

"Okay well I'm just going to point out the elephant in the room," I started, "But, uh, what the _heck_ just happened?"

"Well how about you start," The ginger said, "Because five minutes ago you were a _wolf_. You know my life is pretty weird and I've seen some pretty crazy things, but I have _never_ seen someone go from humungous wolf to a person."

"If you've ever been to the movies in the last hundred years then I bet you can guess. And what about you Ging? You four fight with _swords._ Ever think about upgrading?"

"Actually no," Annabeth butted in, "Because it's traditional and today's weapons are killing machines and would just make the things that hunt us reform faster. So if you have a problem with swords I suggest you go to where we come from so people can hack you to pieces with them."

I shut up. I guess you really shouldn't comment on their old weapons. "But what are you in the first place?"

"What do you mean?" Annabeth asked.

"Well you said that things hunt you and those things hunt you, and you also mentioned something about where you came from." I paused, "We might also know what you're thinking."

"When you say _we_ you really mean _me_ right Jacob?" Edward said, standing in the doorway.

"What I mean is the idea we have about you because of him is totally crazy, but then again we're pretty crazy too."

"We're from New York City, if you know anything about what it's like there then you should have the slight knowledge that everything there is a bit crazy."

"They're half human," Edward said. "Annabeth is protecting her thoughts, so is Percy, but Layla's the open book. She'll tell me everything with out her even knowing it."

"Whatever, read her thoughts, know what we are, it's not the most well kept secret out there. People all over the world know what we are so it shouldn't be a problem you knowing. But it's you who are keeping the secrets, when other people know more about us than we know about then, we get extremely irritated." Percy pushed on. "So once we all calm down you're going to tell us."

"Alice and I can't reveal what we are to humans. You'll be killed if you know." Edward said.

"If someone kills one of us you can expect to be reduced into a pile of ashes. We may not be able to kill you," Annabeth said to Edward. "But my mother and their father will be more than happy too."

"You're important in your society aren't you?"

"Respected would be the right word, but that's still Percy's domain."

I love it when you have no idea what's going on.

"You know what? If you can read minds and everything than why don't you just read mine right now so you know our life's story and you don't have to ask questions. Then you tell your little friends and get the heck out of my house because we have a lot bigger problems right now than dealing with werewolves or whatever the heck you are." Percy said sounding extremely frustrated.

"Please stop fighting." A quiet voice said.

At first I thought it was Alice but then I realized it was coming from a different direction.

"Layla," Seth said relieved.

"Are you okay?" Annabeth asked her.

Layla sat up in the bathtub and turned off the shower, she was still perfectly dry, her shirt was still stained with blood but it was dried on now and no new blood was pouring out. She looked really confused seeing everyone huddled in the bathroom, she had missed a lot.

"We weren't fighting." Percy said.

"Percy shut up," Annabeth told him, "She's probably overwhelmed."

"You were about to start fighting, I have fought with you a lot and I know when you start to get testy Percy."

She started to wake up more after she said that. But she didn't say anything to Seth as she stepped out of the tub and moved past everyone like we weren't even there. Layla marched right out and over to Edward and pointed at him with an expressionless face saying, "We need to talk... alone." With an expressionless voice.

**Layla's POV:**

I acted like I was tough and that I really didn't care about what was going on as I lead the extremely good looking guy in my room. If this was a regular teenage situation this would be completely different. A hot guy coming into my room alone would be taken differently. But I wasn't interested in that stuff, and definitely not with the guy who tried to kill me.

I closed the door behind me and the guy took a look around.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Edward." He said.

"Well Edward, I have a question for you," I started, "You were about to eat me like every other monster out there that looks normal. But you stopped."

"I believe that is a statement."

"My question is why. Why didn't you just kill me? Didn't my smell just overcome you? My family and I are dangerous together, our scent attracts a lot of commotion, especially Percy and I. When something gets a demigod that close to death they usually take the chance for a good meal. And you didn't."

Edward stayed silent. He was still looking at my room, I saw him eying the picture of Rex and I with our arms over each other laughing for the camera in front of the bonfire in our loud orange shirts that no one ever wheres. The one next to it was of us doing hand stands on the beach. After that one was of our other friends, Jewels from the Aphrodite cabin, Amelia of the Demeter cabin, Max from Dionysus's cabin, and us sledding on Half Blood Hill in the winter.

As I looked at him I noticed how much he looked like Nessa, they had the same pale skin and sculpted perfect face. He must be her older brother or something, that's probably why it seems like him and Jacob don't like each other, Edward was just playing the protective big brother role. Just like Percy gets all the time with Rex.

Edwards eyes shifted to the sand dollars laying on my desk. I had 15 of them. They were gifts from my dad, one for each year for my life. Except for this one. He didn't send one for me this year, he didn't forget, he just... gave me the god side of him. The side where things only last so long.

I started to feel lightheaded, I sat down on my little bed but it didn't go away. Edward looked through my window, from there you could see Nessa's house.

"I didn't kill you because you have already been bitten." He said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You have a scar on your neck. Bite marks."

I flinched. I usually used the Mist to cover all my scars up. It raises questions outside of camp where people don't understand.

"You should be like me. You should be one of us, but you're still human. Or half human." He said, not taking his eyes from the window. "Layla, what happened to you?"

I was on a quest of course, but that sounds extremely stupid so I told him something else. "I was traveling with a friend."

"Rex?" He asked.

I had over heard the whole mind reading thing so I didn't question how he knew that.

"Yeah, Rex. Anyways, we were attacked by things called _scalene_. They're like vampires I guess but completely different. One minute they're gorgeous and the next their horrific. I was stupid and let one get a hold of me, it got a bite before Rex killed it. Now there's just a scar and a bad memory."

I moved a part of my shirt so he could see the scar. Rex has saved me a lot. I had barely done anything for him. And then it started, that's all I thought about while in my room. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex. Rex.

My head started to hurt even more.

"You should go." I said, "Go back to where you came from. Just leave us alone, life for us is hard enough as it is."

Edward looked at me like it wasn't that simple. But it was.

"I want to go home, trust me, but I can't, not until I have more information." He said.

"Oh come on, you heard Percy, just read our minds and tell everyone then just leave us alone."

I thought about my life so I didn't have to explain in words, starting with the fire. I added in important things like when I got claimed or when I found out who I was, when I came back from my first quest... unsuccessful, meeting my dad for the first time, going to Olympus, riding Seven my white Pegasus.

"It's all real," I said. "Now please just leave if you're not going to kill us."

Edward left my room.

**Jacob's POV:**

I don't know what happened inside Layla's room but Seth was getting extremely angry, he didn't want her to get hurt like she did before. But when Edward came back out and said 'Let's go' Seth just didn't want to leave. I couldn't blame him or anything but they didn't understand, they might _never_ understand. I'm guessing they'll just pack up and move somewhere else.

We all thumped down the creaky stairs, the ginger was sitting on the couch with her arms crossed and looking a little dazed. She had one of those weird knifes laying next to her. The kind that burnt through Alice.

"What is that knife made of?" Alice asked Rachel, but she didn't respond.

"It's celestial bronze. The only thing that can kill Greek monsters." Annabeth said gently.

They got quiet ever since everyone filed out of the bathroom and waited for Layla and Edward to come out of her room. Like they just didn't want the day's drama to get any worse. Which is understandable, tensions were still high and they were probably still getting over the fact that we were in their house after an attack like that.

Percy said something but I couldn't understand it, when Annabeth replied I realized they were talking in a different language. No not French or Spanish, I looked to Edward to see if he knew what it was because has a tendency to brag about all the languages he know, but he didn't seem to know either.

"Come on, let's go." Edward said.

Annabeth and Percy looked relieved we were finally leaving, Seth on the other hand looked like he wanted to stay forever. I knew that feeling and I didn't want him to go through it too but right now we were walking on a thin line with them.

We walked out the door, "Meet at the treaty line in at 9 o'clock." Alice said, "We'll tell you everything then."

I nodded and walked out into the woods with Seth next to me.

"I know it's hard man," I said.

"Just shut up." He said.

"Seth, I know what you're going through-"

"No you don't Jake!" He shouted. "She doesn't hate you! You got to be Nessie's friend as she grew up and I have to start from scratch. Her whole family thinks I'm going to kill her! How do you think I'm going to ever talk to her? It was _your_ idea to come here when we heard the howl."

"Come on man,"

"Piss off," He said.

Seth phased and ran off. I hope he went home and didn't do something stupid. Seth had become known for doing stupid things when he got really mad. He either picked fights with other kids of the rez or drank a lot. But I had a feeling that's exactly what he was going to do.


	10. Rain, Rain, Go Away

**Ok well the beginning of this chapter is a little slow but push through it because the end is better. At least, better than the beginning! I'm getting better at updating so yeahh, review if you want to! -Aims  
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**Layla's POV:**

You know those days when you feel like you're wearing your emotions? Like it's written all over your forehead? Today was that day, for me anyways. If I had any friends here maybe someone would have cared. Percy was too scared to say anything, he wasn't good at listening to girl problems, he freaks out and never knows what to say. Which is expected from a brother. The only time I can really talk to Percy deeply about something is when it's about dad. We both know what it's like to not to feel very acknowledged by him. He had it a bit worse off too, since he was the 'mistake' child. But I was the kid who never bothered to let him in. I can't have a single conversation with Poseidon without wanting to scream at him.

I guess I have daddy problems.

Yesterday's weather had canceled school but today it was back on. When Percy dropped me off at Forks High after a silent car ride I knew that he knew something was up with me, but he wasn't about to say anything. He just said, "Have a good day" and drove off.

The wind was still raging and the rain continued to pour as I walked into the school. Walking down the hallways is easy for a new girl that looks depressed, people part like the Red Sea as if you have some insane disease. Typical high school. Personally I think it was just jealousy because I've lived some where else than this rainy town. Maybe they've heard that I'm from New York, where it's _sunny_. An unheard concept here. Or maybe they really just didn't care and I was just imagining this whole parting of students thing. Could be either or.

I got to Homeroom, not greeted by Ms. Atkins. Whatever, the old cow doesn't deserve a smile that probably won't even appear on my face today. Just as I sat down on the right said of the room I realized that I didn't have the lab fee and syllabus sheet for Biology signed or paid for. Awesome. _This is high school_, I thought, _probably no one else will have it either_.

That turned out to be true, at least 15 other kids in my biology class didn't have their first assignment of the year. Ms. Atkins scolded us about how this would not be accepted and that if such a simple task couldn't be done then how did we expect to do the actual homework for this quarter. A couple kids mouthed off to her saying they had bigger problems with all the storm damage to their homes than to get a stupid signature.

I admired them for that.

Biology ended with a lecture about how we need to be more responsible being Juniors and all. Algebra didn't go smoothly either, my dyslexia gets worse when I'm stressed out, so it just looked like a jumble of numbers. By the time lunch rolled around I realized that I didn't have anywhere to sit. Again. It was like the first day of school all over again. So walking out of the lunch line I looked around and found a little area by the windows that were empty.

If I had a cell phone I would text Rex and tell him to save me from this place. Then I would call Percy to have him pick me up. But I'm phone less and you know... it sucks. And then I thought, _Does Percy even know he has to pick me up after school?_ Knowing Percy that was probably a no.

I looked down at my lunch which was a tuna sandwich. My apatite went away with my good mood. But the sad thing was that I couldn't even remember when I was in a good mood since I got to Forks. This place was seriously depressing and I just wanted to go home. I wanted go back to camp and hang out with Rex and cry on his shoulder. I wanted to ride Seven to clear my head. I wanted to march up to Olympus and scream at the gods weather I got turned into ashes or not. There were obviously a lot of things that I wanted to do that just weren't going to happen.

I put my face into my hands.

"Hey..." A quiet, shy voice said from behind me.

I looked behind me to see a pale girl with dirty blonde hair. I turned back to my tuna.

"Can I sit with you?" Nessa asked.

I didn't reply.

"You know, I'm a new girl too. Your the only friend I've made so far." She said, "Layla?"

I stood up, grabbed my tray and snapped my fingers, "I'm sorry, but my name is not Layla, you must have me confused with somebody else."

Nessa's face went a little blank, "Oh, I'm sorry, do you know where I can find her?"

"Not sure," I said.

I walked out of the cafeteria after dumping my Styrofoam tray in the trash. Times like these when I'm glad I can manipulate the Mist, but I also know that it can't solve my problems, not forever.

Language class wasn't that hard but I do admit that it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be because there _is_ a difference between Greek and Ancient Greek. Surprising right? Sarcasm rules... P.E. wasn't that hard today, we just played dodge ball the entire time, which was incredibly stupid because only the guys actually played. Nessa was on the opposite team as me anyways.

The clock on the wall didn't tick fast enough, though. When final bell finally rang I grabbed my bag and raincoat to wait outside for Percy. It was pouring outside, no surprise. The wind had died down compared to yesterday and the storm seemed to be more calm. Well, at least to me, but as someone that actually knows what's going on behind the storms, I could tell the difference.

Fifteen minutes passed by with no sign of Percy, or Annabeth for that matter. I was standing underneath an awning so I didn't get wet but I knew if I had to walk home I was going to get soaked. Ten more minutes passed until I put my hood up and started to walk home in the rain. It didn't take long before the rain seeped through my backpack. I thought about how messed up my Greek and Algebra textbooks were going to be when I got home.

I was walking into the rain so the droplets hit my face and rolled all the way down my neck. Cars passed by me, splashing in the small rivers that flowed against the sidewalks, then disappeared into the rain. A newish truck pulled up next to me and slowed to my walking pace.

"Layla?" A voice yelled over the rain.

I looked to my left to see Seth. Was he stalking me or something? "Seth?"

"What are you doing?" He asked like I was crazy.

"Walking home, what does it look like?" I yelled back.

"Jump in, I'll give you a ride."

Should I do it? I was tempted to say 'What no candy?' but decided against it.

"Look, I know yesterday was weird and scary and everything but we need to start off fresh and clean baby." Wait a second, he just called me _baby._

"What?" I asked.

"_Pleeease_?"

I noticed that his words were slurred a little, I couldn't tell before because the rain was so noisy but now...

"Seth are you drunk?" I said.

"Layla, I can explain."

"Just shut up and get out of the car, you should _not_ be driving."

Seth reluctantly got out of the truck and walked over to me. He was in a red t-shirt that showed off his muscles. He pulled me into a hug like we were old friends. He smelled like booze and I pushed him away.

"Get in," I said pointing to the passengers seat.

Once Seth was in the truck I walked over to the drivers side and threw my backpack into the back seat before sitting down. The car was warm so I took off my soaking jacket revealing my green shirt underneath. I put my half soaked hair into a bun and started the truck.

Once we were driving I realized just hard it was raining, the wind shield whippers were moving as fast as they could go and I could still barely see the road. I probably looked really stupid when I was driving because I was squinting and had my head up right next to the steering wheel so I could see.

"You're a slow driver." Seth said.

"You're lucky I can _drive_."

"Where are we going?"

"I'm going home and your going to Nessa's." I told him.

"Why can't I go to your house? Nessa is _so_ annoying."

"Just shut up Seth!" My patience was getting shorter and shorter the longer I was with him.

"Snappy." Seth said and smirked.

I rolled my eyes and tried to concentrate on the road. I'll admit it, I'm not the best driver. Maybe because the I only had two driving lessons...from Mr. D... in the strawberry vans. Not exactly you're ideal driving experience. I didn't have my license, thank the gods I haven't gotten pulled over yet.

I turned on my street and pulled into Nessa's driveway. She was home, her black car was in front.

I looked at Seth, but he was already staring at me.

"You're beautiful, you know that right?" He said all starry eyed.

"And you're drunk, so obviously you're not thinking straight."

But I looked at his face and he looked completely sober, well, minus the smell. _You're drunk, you're drunk, you don't mean it_. I said over and over again in my head.

"I'm serious Layla." Seth still had that sober look on his face as he said it.

Then he lurched forward at me. He grabbed the back of my head and smashed his lips against mine. His body was extremely warm and his breath stank like no other. I pushed him off but Seth didn't look satisfied. He had a look on his face that said he wasn't sure if he did something wrong or not. If he wasn't so heavily intoxicated I would have been pissed. But he wasn't Seth right now, who ever that was.

"Come on," I said more patiently than before, "Let's get inside."

"But I don't want to leave you." He said.

"Well you're going to have to at some point."

I yanked the keys out of the ignition and played with them between my finger. I reached in back for my coat and backpack and jumped out of the truck. I had to help Seth out of his seat because he looked like he was going to fall out. He put his arm around me, I wanted to say it was because he needed the support but I knew it was because he liked me or whatever.

We climbed up the porch steps and I knocked on the door. I heard footsteps coming. Jacob answered the door. I looked at the ground. "Seth is..."

Jacob sighed and helped me bring Seth inside. We set him down on the couch next to where Nessa was sitting.

"Thank you for bringing him Layla." Jake said.

"Jake what are you talking about?" Nessa said, "This isn't Layla, this is another girl."

Jake gave me a weird look, "Sorry, I sorta messed with her head today..." I said, "Don't worry I can fix it."

I closed my eyes and snapped my fingers. Reversing the Mist was harder than just doing it, if that makes any sense. When I opened my eyes I saw that Nessa's expression had hardened and looked more confused.

"All better." I said.

I turned to leave but Jake grabbed my arm. I whipped my head around and gave him a look that could kill but his grip didn't loosen.

"Can we talk?" He said. "Alone."

"No." I told him.

"Well that's not exactly going to work now is it?"

"Jake, I returned Seth for you in good shape. I've been through enough these past few days so can you just give me some space? I'm still not even sure what happened yesterday and you know... Seth isn't exactly helping with this situation."

Jake's hand was practically on fire, my arm was sweating where his hand was placed. I looked at his eyes that were so brown you couldn't see the pupil. They were telling me not to go but I knew I had to.

"Look," He said. "I'm trying to play diplomat here but you're not letting me."

"I'm sorry Jake, but I have to go."

He let go and I walked out the door. Outside it was still raining but I didn't care because it was only a few steps to our house. I walked through the door and into the kitchen where Annabeth and Percy were sitting around the table. Rachel was standing next to the refrigerator with her arms crossed.

When Percy saw me, soaking wet in all my glory, his eyes went wide, "I was suppose to pick you up wasn't I?"

"Uh, ya think?" I said.

I opened the fridge and grabbed the orange juice. I poured myself a glass and walked upstairs. I immediately stripped of my wet clothes and into fresh new ones. My head started to hurt again so I laid on my bed. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and then a knock on my door.

"What?" I said annoyed.

"Can I come in?" Annabeth said.

I didn't reply but she came in anyways and leaned against the door frame.

"I know it's been tough," She said, I covered my face with my hands, "But we're all struggling here."

"Yeah but I thought they were my friends."

"And they still can, Seth seems to like you."

"Gods I don't even know they guy!"

"Layla you really need to give the people here a chance," Annabeth's voice rising, "Because we're not going anywhere, so you're not going to mope around complaining about how you have no friends."

Annabeth left the room and stomped down the stairs. My eyes teared up but I didn't cry, my eyelids felt heavy from the day of stressing even though it was only 4 o'clock. They closed without any strain.

In my dream I was laying in my bed sleeping, which was kind of weird, then Rex appeared in the doorway and walked over to my side. He moved a piece of hair away from my face and leaned down to kiss me. But before he could reach my lip his figure changed and he was Seth, then Seth's figure changed just as he was about to kiss me. The guy kissing me had blonde hair and was a little older than me. But I knew his face, I would never forget it.

I woke with a light start, my eyes drifted to the clock, it was only an hour later. This dream was a warning that I didn't take lightly. _He_ was coming.


	11. Typical Dates

**Ok well this is kind of a long chapter but only because there's a lot of dialogue in it so yeah, originally it was 8 pages long on the document but I cut and made another chapter with the ending so it wouldn't get boring. Well enjoy! -Aims**

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An uneventful week later the doorbell rang. I was sitting on the couch watching the news. The storms had died down, for now at least, I knew the gods were just taking a break, plotting what they were going to do next. With Athena on Poseidon's side there had to be something good, something tricky to come next. I got up from the couch and went to the door. When I saw who was standing there I thought to myself, _Of course._ Who else would it be? Seth and Jacob stood in front of me, Seth's head hung low and Jake looked annoyed with him.

"He's not drunk again is he?" I asked rolling my eyes.

"Fortunately no." Jacob replied. "But I believe lover boy has something to ask you."

I crossed by arms and gave Seth the same annoyed look that Jake had on his face. This was going to be interesting.

"I... um..." Seth stuttered.

"He's not good with words is he?" I asked.

"Nope."

"Layla Brice," Seth started, "I really want to start over with you for like the tenth time so, will you... go on, like a... _date_ with me?"

Seth squeezed his eyes shut like he wasn't very excited for the answer. I would be nervous to ask out the person I jumped off a cliff for, got trapped in a bubble for, almost killed, possibly saved, got drunk in front of, drunkenly kissed, got rejected from. Well, who wouldn't? I guess I'm a hard person to like.

"Sure."

Seth's eye's grew wide, "Really?"

Poor guy looked like a little kid, "Yup."

"Okay!"

"I think what Seth means," Jacob said, "Is when and where."

"Well, I'm free any time really, I mean it's not like I really have a lot going on here..." I said.

"So how about Friday night? Movies?" Seth said.

Movie date on a Friday night, how stereotypical is that? "Sounds like a date."

"Cool beans." Jake said, I stared at him funny, did he really just say 'Cool beans'?

"Okay well...bye." Seth gently waved and I could tell that he was deciding whether to hug me or not.

"Bye Seth, I'll see you tomorrow night." I gave him a warm smile, surprised at how quickly my mood got better.

Seth walked down the porch steps and across to Nessa's house but Jake stayed.

"I gotta ask," He started, "What made you change your mind about him and say yes?"

"Why? Did you want me to say no?" I asked.

"No! Of course not, it's just..." He trailed off like he didn't know how to put what he wanted to say in words that wouldn't upset me.

"That he's kind of make a lot of stupid mistakes with me?"

"Well... yeah."

"I don't really know, I think it's because when someone jumps off a cliff for you and calls you beautiful, it's time to give them a chance." Everything in my body was telling me I was hypocrite because not to long ago I didn't want anything to do with Seth, but some force was told me to flip my reasoning's around and just... go with it.

"But last week..."

"I was a jerk, I know. It's just that I have a lot going on right now, plus that day wasn't my best, Seth just... set off a lot of emotions that I shouldn't have dumped on him." I paused. "Or you."

"I was waiting for that."

Why do I mess up so much? Jake was only trying to be my friend and I just bitched at him. I don't get how I can feel so angry the one day, then so normal the next. Rex always comments on this, whenever I'm ready to bite his head off, the next day I act like it never happens. I see how it could get annoying and everything but I don't know, I can't stop it. It's like I'm bipolar or something.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have acted like that, but say what you need to say to me right now."

I walked out the front door and closed it behind me, I went over and sat on one of the little chairs on the porch and motioned for Jake to sit on the one next to me. I listened to the rain drip off the sides of the house and it clanking down into the old gutters.

"Well first of all," Oh boy, why do I feel like this was going to be a long speech? "Seth is going to come off extremely strong, but he can't help it. So you just have to go with it, and don't be afraid to tell him if somethings wrong because the last thing he wants to do is hurt you Layla. As tempting as that may be..."

"Hey!" I lightly punched him in the arm, my knuckles came away screaming, I shook my hand out, "Gods, punching you is like punching my brother."

"I've got skin like steel girl."

"Oh shut up now you _sound_ like Percy."

"Okay enough about your brother that's just making this awkward."

"Good point."

Suddenly the door opened and Rachel walked out pulling a pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket. Her eyes went wide when she saw me and Jake sitting there.

"No way," I said looking at the pack in her hands, "You do _not_ smoke."

"Layla-"

"I knew you smelled weird."

"I am still protected, so they won't do any harm to body at all! So shut up and don't say anything to Percy and Annabeth."

I looked back at Jake who was staring at us weirdly, probably wondering why we were freaking out about how she was smoking when like, every other person in the world already does it. Probably because at camp if you get caught smoking, you can say good bye to your summer haven! Especially for Rachel because she used to be oh so important and everything.

"Whatever, I won't say anything." I said.

"Good," Rachel went to the other side of the porch and lit up.

Jake stood up, "I should probably go," He said.

"Yeah, I'll see you...?"

"Tomorrow night."

"We're doubling?" I said, trying to hide the disappointment in my voice, double dates were so stupid.

"No, but trust me, I'll see you tomorrow." He said.

"Okay then."

I stood up with him and gave him an awkward hug, he smelled smoky and a bit like dog but he was extremely warm too. When we pulled apart I tried not to meet his eyes but waved him goodbye even though he was only going next door.

I entered the house again to see that Percy and Annabeth had taken over the couch.

"What was that all about?" Percy asked.

"Oh you know," I said, "Just got asked out, the usual."

"By who?" He asked.

"Seth."

"I thought you didn't like him." Annabeth cut in.

"Well, I think I should just give him a chance," I said, "So tomorrow night I won't be around."

"Okay, just don't do anything stupid..." Percy said.

"But I'm so good at it!" I said in a whiny voice.

* * *

School ticked on and on the next day, classes went by slower than usual and the lunch was bad again so I skipped it. The rain continued to fall but I came to realize that this wasn't very uncommon here in Forks. It was normal. I don't know how they could do this all year long with all the rain and stuff, it would make me paranoid like it is now. I thought that maybe the storms were just natural right now and not just Zeus and Poseidon fighting.

When Percy picked me up from school I went straight up to my room and laid on my bed. I looked up at the popcorn textured ceiling with wonder. What was going to happen tonight? Was it going to be awkward? I'm guessing it is because this is Seth we are talking about here, I've only met him a few times and I can already tell he is the epitome of awkwardness with girls. Which means I have my work cut out for me. I couldn't tell if I wanted a relationship or not because at any time we could pack up and move back to New York, Percy and Annabeth to their apartment, me to Camp Half-Blood. Do I want to get tied down and miss someone dearly from across the country? Nope.

But, hang on Layla, this is the first date, you're not deciding your entire future. I'm a teenage girl though, I over think _everything_ without even noticing it. That's not exactly the best thing either, because then I'm just paranoid about where this might lead too and if I want to go there.

Downstairs I could hear the movement of chairs around the kitchen table and the heavy footsteps of my brother, I heard voices but couldn't make out the words. I wondered how Annabeth was holding up without being able to draw a building every day or make a zillion calls to a zillion different people about budgets and supply orders that hadn't come in yet. She was probably going ballistic and trying to find different ways to rearrange the furniture in the house or get new decorations. Maybe she was trying to get a hold of Athena so she could pry some information out of her.

I wondered how many golden drachmas Percy had wasted trying to get a hold of Chiron to get information out of _him_ too, or Tyson even. I knew he wouldn't try dad, that's insane, the probably unsuccessful conversation would last for two seconds, or simply, Poseidon would be just too pissed off the answer.

My mind drifted to if Seven was being taken care of well enough, she's such a priss and throws a fit if she doesn't get what she wants, she's _nothing_ like Blackjack. Seven is such a high maintenance Pegasus if crazy. If she doesn't get fed at the right time she'll buck and rear all over the stables, if no one picks up the poop out of her stall when she's taking someone a ride, she won't go back in until it's clean. She's seriously OCD and a brat. That's why she's perfect for me, that's why she's _mine_. Because she's interesting to talk to and to learn her quirky ways. I'm also the only one who wants to put up with her.

I have a high tolerance for things on some days, but others I just want to smash a big pie in the worlds face.

* * *

Seth picked me up at 7:30 to go to the movie. When he rang the doorbell Percy made sure he was the one who answered the door so he could give the protective big brother speech, but I slipped through him before he could say much. I had on a pretty chill out fit, jeans that had fifteen dollars crammed into the right front pocket, just in case I needed it, a light green v-neck t-shirt with my blue raincoat over it. My hair was in a braid down the left side. I even put the effort to dab on a little bit of mascara, Jewels would be proud even though it was a miniscule amount of make up I had put on _by myself_. Make up was never really a big deal with me since I wasn't really out to impress anybody at camp.

Seth was in casual clothes too, jeans and a tee. But I mean, how dressed up can you really get just to go the movies.

"So what movie are we going to see?" I asked him as we got into his truck, he opened and closed the door for me and everything. Cute.

It was weird being in the his truck again considering last time we were both in it he was drunk, I was pissed, and he also kissed me. So yeah, just a bit weird.

"I thought that maybe we could see the new remake of Batman." He said. "You game?"

"Totally." I replied with a smile.

Honestly I had seen the previews for a lot of movies back at camp but never got the chance to see any of the actual movies unless Percy temporarily kidnapped me for a day and took me into the city. I had seen the preview for Batman and it was one of those movies I thought would be good but never got my hopes on seeing the product, so I was happy to hear that we were going to see it. Even though, according to the ancients at camp, it was like the seventh remake of the movie.

"You're in luck," Seth said as we backed out of the driveway, "A new theater just opened up here in Forks a couple of months ago so we don't have to drive forever just to see a movie."

"Sweet, sounds like I made it here to Forks just in time." I said with a smile.

The car ride there was silent, the rain lightly tapped on the windshield as we wove through the roads and stop lights, Seth turned on the radio to an alternative music station where the music sounded almost as unusual as the lyrics to the songs. There was something about the alternative genre that I couldn't put my finger on, it was like country music, you like it or you hate it but never in between. I liked some songs but couldn't stand others.

The car stayed silent and when we pulled up to the theater and parked, surprisingly close to the entrance, Seth hurried out of the truck so he could open the door for me and help me out, closing it behind me. We walked in silence to the ticket booth, the puddles from the parking lot soaked through my Nike's a little bit and were a bit damp inside.

Seth ordered two adult tickets to Batman and paid in cash the $15.00 it cost to get in. When we reached the concession stands he asked, "Do you want anything besides popcorn?"

"Uh, yeah, I think I'll have a medium Diet Coke, please." I said to him.

Seth ordered a large popcorn, on large Mountain Dew, and a medium Diet Coke for us from a girl about our age wearing an AMC visor and red polo that had a blue collar on. I'm not to into fashion or anything, but I think movie theater uniforms are the worse. Someone ripped off the end of our two tickets and told us we were suppose to go to Theater 8, right down the hall.

Theater 8 was humongous, the screen was the biggest screen in the whole place, it was one of those screens that they only showed the new and highly anticipated movies on, had midnight premieres on with teenagers lined up all the way outside the theater. Of course this wasn't the premiere, but it was obvious that this movies was still getting a lot of attention for being in the box office for only a couple weeks. A lot of the seats in the super theater were already filled but we managed find two smack dab in the middle, halfway up the stairs.

The movie started twenty minutes late and the previews took another twenty minutes, by the time the movies actually started half the popcorn was gone and so was half my Coke. It was obvious that tonight was date night, well it's been date night for ages now so I don't know why I was expecting it to be less crowded, but you knew there were a lot of teenagers in the place when you were surrounded by people making out throughout the explosions and action scenes. I don't get why people pay so much money just to play tonsil hockey the whole time while a room full of people are trying to enjoy the film in peace. Or maybe it was just because I hadn't had that experience before.

The movie was _three hours_ long. I was exhausted by the time it was over and I was busting to pee. When we emerged from the theater in a pack of people Seth commented on how if he had known it was going to take that long, he would have picked another movie. I told him that next time I'd pick, that gave him a little smile since I said 'next time' meaning there would be a second date.

After we both went to the bathroom and got back into the car Seth said that he was going to take me somewhere else. It was already midnight and I was dead tired.

"I'm just going to take you on the rez to meet some people." He said reassuringly, "It's about a 45 minute drive so you can get some shut eye on the way there if you want."

And that's what I did, I curled up into as much as a ball as I could in the upright seat and fell asleep. I felt like I had shut my eyes for five seconds until Seth was shaking me awake.

"Layla..." He said gently, "Layyyyla."

He softly poked my shoulder, "Hmmmm." I moaned.

"Come on, we're here, there's a comfy couch that we can sit on and warm blankets." Seth said trying to get me out of the truck. "Don't make me carry you in."

Suddenly I was a little more awake than I thought I could be, I wasn't used to late nights but I was not going to be embarrassed and have him carry me inside to meet who ever he wanted me to meet. Slowly I uncurled and hopped down to the ground. Seth put him arm around me and lead me into the house we were parked in front of.

The house smelled smokey but in a bonfire kind of way that was a little homey. There were pictures everywhere of various events and little carvings of wolves on the book selves. Seth lead me into a room that must have been the family/living room because there were about thirty people shoved into the tiny space. The couched were full so some leaned against the wall of sat on the floor. There was a wide range of age groups among them, there were people my age, some in their mid twenties, a few just over the hill, and a bunch of old people. Everyone was having a good time, laughing and telling stories, there was a card game in one corner and in another people were laughing at an old game show on the TV. Almost all of them seemed to be Native Americans except a couple.

Everything seemed to be going just perfectly until we walked into the room. Quickly they fell silent, studying us, me in my sleepy state and Seth in his... Sethness state. I didn't know a soul but my eye caught Jake and Nessa sitting on the floor with a few other guys.

"Glad to see you made it man," Jake said, breaking the silence, "He didn't mess up too much did he?" Jake asked me, I smiled and shook my head no.

"Everybody," Seth started, "This is Layla."

There were a few 'Hi Layla's but mostly everyone stayed quiet. This is were I run back to the truck, curl up in my little ball, and hide.

A girl stood up from on of the couches, her hair jet black hair was cut short, she navigated her way across the people on the floor and over to us, she stuck out her hand at me, "I'm Leah," She said unsmiling, "Seth's sister."

"Hi Leah," I said in a small voice, "It's nice to meet you."

Leah shot Seth a look but Seth looked away too quickly, Leah walked down the hallway away from the crowd.

"You two, come join us." Jake called.

We tip toed over people and over to Jake's little circle of five people including in and Nessa. I sat up against the wall with Seth sitting closely next to me. There was a guy with a big bandage around his left shoulder with his other arm held tightly around a really pretty girl who looked a ton older than the guy with the bandage. The girl smiled at me and I noticed the huge scar down her face, "I'm Emily," She said, "And this is Sam."

"Hi," I said still wanting to curl up in the truck.

The other guy was all by him self, kind of like the seventh wheel in the circle.

"This is Harry." Seth said.

"Hey Harry," I said.

"Sup?" He asked.

"Tired, you?"

"Same."

Man of few words I assume.

"So this is my family." Seth said with a smile.

"_All_ of them?" I asked.

"Yup."

"Wow, that's pretty big."

"Do you have a big family?" Emily asked.

Jake shot her a look but she didn't seem to see it or understand. I thought about all the kids at camp and all the gods, plus the ones that have perished in the last two thousand years.

"Yeah," I said. "It's pretty large. I have a lot of aunts and uncles and cousins. I can barely keep track of them all."

"Don't you ever have family reunions?" Emily asked.

I had to think about that, did camp count? What about the solstice meetings of the gods? "Some of us get together with others but we're never all there at the same time."

If the gods and all their children all god together at some point I don't think I'd even want to be there in the first place. I'm guessing that in the first five minutes and fight would happen and all hell would break loose. It wouldn't be the place someone would want to be.

I looked at Sam's huge bandage and wondered how he got it. But suddenly as I looked more closely at it, all the puzzle pieces came together. My eyes widened and I moved backwards, bumping into someone behind me. It all made sense, the little wolf carvings everywhere, Jake and Seth's skin was so warm because it was like an animals. My mind flashed back to when I was thrusting my sword into the shoulder of a black wolf just as it was lunging at me.


	12. Wolves and Demigods

**Ok so the chapter before this one was extremely long so I'm sorry if that was hard to get through, but this one is shorter! Less intense, I guess, but shorter! Review if you feel like it! -Aims**

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"You've got be kidding me." I whispered to myself.

"Layla," Seth said confused, "Are you okay?"

"No."

Why was I still here? Why wasn't I running away? My breat77hing quickened and I felt my sword appear on my arm. The room felt to be shrinking.

"Please don't freak out." Jake said.

"Oh, I am definitely freaking out."

"You need to calm down." Emily said looking around the room.

"How can I calm down?" I said, "You're... you're... _werewolves_. How do I process that?"

"Yeah," Seth said matter-a-factually, his voice rising. "And how do you expect me process the fact that your dad is a freaking Greek god?"

The room went silent and someone whispered "What did he say?". Everyone looked at us. I looked down at the floor, _Thanks for reminding me_, I thought.

"Seth," Sam said irritated, "We were going to wait."

"Wait for what?" I said getting mad, "For you to tell your family about who I am? How long were you going to wait until you told _me_ who you were?"

I stood up and faced everyone in the room, "Well guys, my name is Layla Brice and my father is Poseidon the Greek god of the Sea. No, I am not ancient, my father is simply extremely old. A lot to take in? Well so is finding out that you're in a room full of wolf people." I said exasperated.

"Whoa, Seth imprinted on a lunatic." Someone said.

I hopped over people and ran outside into the rain. I jumped into the drivers side of Seth's truck, the door was unlocked, and pulled out the wires from underneath the steering wheel. One of my friends from the Hephaestus cabin taught me how to hot wire a car before I went on my first quest, even though I didn't use it then, now was the perfect time to put my memory to the test. I slid two wires against each other, there was a slight spark and my finger tips stung but the truck roared to life. I settled into the seat and closed the door, but before it fully shut, someone put their hand in front of it. It was Seth, he didn't looked happy, slightly amused but definitely _not_ happy.

"You know," He said, "Usually I admire the kind of girl that can hot wire a car, but not when it's mine."

I laid my head against the headrest and let out a sigh, my eyes started to dam up with tears, "Why does everything in my life have to be so complicated?"

I looked at him and he shrugged, "I asked myself that a long time ago and didn't exactly come up with anything."

I cracked a smile but it didn't really help, "You can run and take my truck, but I'll always come back and ask you on a date until you realize that you want me as your boyfriend." He said.

"But why?" I asked.

"Because I imprinted on you." I gave him a weird look. "It's when my genetics make me fall in love with the person that will carry the bloodline the best. From the moment I first saw you I was in love you, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I can't ever cheat, or even momentarily think about another girl, you're the only thing that keeps me in this world now."

Jeez. That's pretty hard core. I wonder if that's what the gods say to their lovers, that their the only thing that keeps them from fading away into nothing. You know, until the next morning and they just disappear. But Seth wasn't a god or a typical teenager telling me he loved me just to get into my pants. It was like he actually liked me. Loved me, I mean.

Tears slid down my face, "You wanna know why I'm here?"

He nodded, "It's because my father and Zeus are fighting, that's why the weather all over the country has been haywire. My dad thinks that because Olympus and all the real action is over on the east coast, where I was located before, that Percy, Annabeth and I would be safe across the country. But the fight just followed us."

"Do you know why they're fighting?"

I sniffed, "Who knows, the gods don't bother to tell any of their kids what is going on Percy thinks he knows but of course he won't tell me either. But it's probably stupid, like it always is. The gods almost murdered Percy when he was only twelve and our father almost started a war because of it, because Percy an illegal child. He's the mistake child, I'm the problem child."

"Problem child?" Seth asked, "How are you the problem child?"

I almost thought he was joking, "I run off, disobey rules, start a fight with my father when ever I possibly can, blame the gods for everything, I'd rather be a human than have powers. Humans have normal problems, you know, boy drama, friend drama, weight drama, appearance drama, I guess my dad would still be a jerk but at least he wouldn't have the ability to turn me into ash, or have relatives that would."

"He can turn you to ash?"

"Oh yes, make me spontaneously combust, anything really, he can make thing appear out of thin are, destroy thousands of lives in an earthquake or tsunami, make a beautiful women fall in love with him in one night. What about your dad? Is he a wolf man too?"

"Ah, no." Seth said looking at the ground, "It skipped a generation, but he died a long time ago of a heart attack."

Suddenly I felt guilty, I should have seen this coming with all the sob stories I hear about from new campers back in Long Island. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, it was a long time ago, you can't let things like that bring you down for the rest of your life you know?" He said.

Just then I did something that I didn't expect myself to do, maybe it was the lack of sun, all the craziness of the day, or the fact that I felt suddenly extremely close to Seth just in five minutes of a conversation, but I slowly leaned forward kissed him. Seth seemed a little taken aback himself but as he realized what just happened he wrapped me in his arms and kissed me harder, like he had been waiting a long time for this. I pulled back and smiled, Seth looked like he wanted more but I felt like I was about to pass out.

"You look tired," How did he do that? "Do you want me to bring you home or do you just want to spend the night here on the couch."

"Um," Percy would kill me if I stayed the night at a boys house but what ever. "Can I just crash on the couch? It's almost two o'clock and I don't want you to fall asleep at the wheel, it's not the shortest drive home."

"Okay, so let's just go in and-"

"Can we just stay here until every body leaves? I feel really embarrassed..."

"Sure, that's not a problem, but you _do _know that my sister and mom will still be there right?" I nodded, "Okay then you're going to have to move seats because you're in _my_ seat right now."

I laughed a little, the tears drying on my face, "I don't know, I'm comfy here."

"I'll move you myself then," The next thing I know, Seth is picking me up and sliding me across to the passenger's seat.

So we just sat there and talked the night away until everyone in his family left. We talked about how he could phase when ever he wanted and all that movie crap about werewolves is just a load of crap, he told me that he didn't age until he stopped turning into wolf form, which was really hard and why he looks sixteen when he's really just a few years younger than Percy and Annabeth. I told him about my quests and how I didn't really have a life outside of camp. I left out Rex.

I IM'd Percy which impressed Seth and told him I was staying the night, he wasn't happy about it, he said something about me doing something stupid which was exactly what he told me not to do. But something made him semi agree to me staying there. We walked into the house and Seth got me blankets, Leah leaned against the wall and watched me closely, I could tell she didn't like me but I had a feeling that she didn't like _anyone_. Seth's mom was really nice and I couldn't stop thanking her for letting me crash on the couch. But apparently I was more than welcome to do when ever I needed to.

I slept hard, and had to wake up early so Seth could bring me back home. Everyone was still asleep when I finally arrived, not even Rachel moved when I passed her on _our_ couch. I went up to my room and slept some more, dreaming of chasing wolves around. When I finally woke up it was 11:30 and there was someone waiting for me patiently in my room.


	13. The Deal

**Ok first of all, I'm really sorry that this took forever to get up, I actually have had this chapter done since I last updated, but computer problems stopped me in my tracks. Thank you to Kenna, one of my best friends, who gave me the gift of a cordless mouse because my trackpad is broken. Enjoy! -Aims**_  
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_Please, no._

"You're finally up! Someone had a late night didn't they?" The blonde said, sitting in the chair in the corner in my room.

I sat up in my bed, downstairs I could hear the bacon and eggs being cooked up on the stove and the screeching of chairs against the tile floor as they were being moved around. He was here in broad daylight, where people could see. Or hear.

"What are you doing here?" I asked in a whisper, still not believing what was right in front of me.

"I'm here for the same reasons that I always am, you should know this by now."

"I don't want to do this anymore though, it's not fair to me or..." I trailed off.

"Seth?"

"Not just him, you know who I'm talking about." I looked down at the white rug on my floor. "I can't do this right now, things have changed, come back at night so we can talk about this, okay?"

He got up from the chair and sat on the edge of my bed, he reached out and stroked my cheek with him thumb.

"I'll do whatever you want me too," He said, "As long as it doesn't interfere with our deal."

I think I stayed in the same position for what felt like an hour after his disappeared, but when my mind slowly came back to the real world I got up and padded downstairs for some food. Percy was still making eggs, and like usual everyone was sitting around the kitchen table. Annabeth was reading the paper, she had the New York Times delivered here so she could keep up with everything back home.

"Good morning sleepyhead." Percy said turning from the stove in a grumbled tone.

I went to the fridge and got the orange juice out, and poured into a glass. This task was so simple yet my head was spinning in a thousand different directions. I sat down at the table with Annabeth and Rachel and stared at my glass of juice.

"Did you have fun last night?" Percy said sounding pissed.

"Shut up, I'm not in the mood." I told him.

Annabeth seemed to notice how I seemed a little lost, "Are you okay?" She asked.

_No_, I thought, "Yeah I'm just..."

"Clearly not okay." Rachel finished for me, I shot her a glare.

"He didn't hurt you did he?" Percy said in protective mode.

"No, _no._ Of course not, why would you think that?"

"Because last time a boy hurt you, mentally at least, you were silent for days, and we still don't know why." Annabeth told me.

I knew what she was talking to me about too. After every meet up with _him_ I always felt lost and confused, like I was now. But they never found out who the boy was.

"Seth didn't hurt me, I promise. He could never do that to me..." I whispered the last part, thinking of what he told me yesterday night about never being able to cheat on me, that I was his one and only.

For a second I thought about that, how could I not want to be with a guy that would never even think about hurting me, or leaving?

"I'll be right back." I said getting out of my chair.

"Wait, Layla!" Percy called after me.

But I was already out the door, I walked out the door into the rain still in my pajamas with out shoes on. I splashed through the puddles and mud on the ground. My feet carried me next door, I found myself knocking on the door.

Charlie opened up the door, "Well hello." He said.

"Uh, is Nessa here?" I said, now that I was here, I realized that I didn't think ahead about what to say.

"Yeah, here I'll go get her."

I watched as Charlie walked down the hall and turned a corner. The next thing I know Nessa is in front of me with her arms crossed, she was still in her pajamas.

"Um, hey." I said, not knowing where to go from there.

"Hi," She said quietly.

"Can you deliver a message for me?" I asked her.

I half expected her to say 'Do I look like a messenger?' but she just looked at her feet and nodded her head.

"Can you please tell Seth that I want to be with him. To be his girlfriend I mean, it's just that I realized today, that I don't want to give up a guy that will love me and never hurt me. But can you also tell him that... something is going to happen tonight, just tell him that I'm so sorry... so sorry."

My eyes started to well up with tears, Nessa looked at me, not understanding why I was about to cry. "Can you tell him tonight? I need him to know."

She didn't say anything but I could see in her eyes that she would tell him. I hoped.

He came back at 11 pm, just like he said he would. Rachel was out doing who knows what and Percy and Annabeth had already It was perfect. For him. I was looking at pictures of me and Rex, knowing I was about to betray him once again, without him even knowing it. I thought about Seth, and how I was about to screw up it all up so quickly it could be a world record.

"You don't look to excited to see me." He said, he was wearing khaki shorts and a light blue button up shirt, nicer than usual, he must have just come from Olympus.

"I'm having second thoughts about this, that's all." I told him.

"Second thoughts? I _need_ you Layla, sometimes I don't think I can get through another year without being able to see you. I need someone sane to talk to."

"You don't mean that Apollo." I said, looking up at him across the room, "You're a god, I'm a human. In a hundred years you won't even know who I am."

Apollo walked across the room and sat next to me on my bed, "It's all different with you."

"I don't want to do this anymore though," I said standing up, trying to get distance between him and I. "I don't need these gifts, I just needed them for the quest, and that was four years ago."

"Then I'll call of the deal, I do whatever, just as long as I get to come back to you. I'll be with you forever, I can make you my immortal bride."

"Yeah and you know what?" I said, starting to cry, "That's what you all say, you'll be there until you knock me up. Apollo, you don't understand, every time I look at Rex I feel like I'm the worst friend in the world. Every time you claim a new camper I get to remember that I'll never be your one and only. And now there's Seth and he'll be the exact opposite of you."

He got up and put him arms arm me and lifted my chin so he could look at me, I looked away.

"Nothing is over until _I _say it is." He said demandingly.

My head kept spinning, going back to when we first made the deal. It was my first quest, the prophecy said that I had to go alone or my partners would die. Unfortunately a lot of the task's that were laid before me as I traveled were the things I didn't have the ability to preform. That's where Apollo came in, he said he had been watching me, that I was very beautiful. So he gave me the gifts I needed to complete the quest. In return I would listen to him vent, and keep him company when he felt lonely. I knew a lot of his secrets. He used to get me out of camp without anyone knowing it was him. We would go to the city and talk in a coffee shop, he always changed his appearance so he looked my age, so it didn't look as weird as it really was.

It didn't take long for the keeping-him-company part of the deal to turn into us getting dangerously close, simple hugs turned into meaningful kisses. I was only twelve back when the deal was made, I had no idea what it would become. But I couldn't go back to camp with a failed quest, I was _Percy Jackson's_ little sister, if I didn't do well I would be frowned upon. A disappointment to my father, which was worse than the rumors about me from any gossiper of the Aphrodite cabin. I was expected to be great like my older brother, the glory was suppose to run in the family, I was suppose to me just as miraculous as him. But I was nothing near it, I had to _cheat_, I had to sink lower than any other demigod has gone. This was my only option. I was twelve and clearly an idiot. But then I was thirteen and let myself fall in love. I guess things don't change. The worst part, besides Apollo being a _god,_ was that he was my best friend's dad.

Of course Rex was giving me archery lessons and was amazed when I suddenly got extremely good at it. Seeing the look on his face when I first hit the bull's eye made me want to collapse, he thought he was doing a great job with me, but it wasn't him at all.

And now, he was here, just as things were going good. He was giving me that look as he held me, the puppy dog face enhanced by two thousand years of practice. I forced myself to look at him and not feel anything. But looking into those vibrant, blue eyes, I couldn't do anything but melt. I had that same feeling as I always did when he was around, like I tripped over a rock and scrapped my knees but didn't care at all. I would fall for him, and he would heal me. Some times he told me things he didn't tell anyone, like how some days he thinks he could just fade away, on those days it me who has to heal him.

"Stop looking at me like that." I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

Apollo cracked a smiled, his white teeth shined like the sun, "Like what?"

I made a mantra for myself, so I could resist, Seth, Seth, Seth, Rex, Rex, Rex, family, family, family.

"Please," Apollo's voice suddenly sounded weak and wounded, "I need you... I love you Layla. Don't leave me."

Those words were like the light switch of the mood. My armor came down in seconds, it clattered on the floor and dissolved like the sun as it had set earlier in the night. I looked into his eyes, the bright blueness of them were scared and watery. I tried to remind myself why I didn't want to do this. Seth, Seth, Seth, Rex, Rex, Rex, family, family, family. Apollo's face was slowly getting closer to mine, and I wasn't doing anything to stop it. Centimeters apart he waited for me to make the next move. My mantra was the only thing keeping me from closing the small gap between us.

I stood up and skirted around him. Resist Layla, resist. Apollo followed me, still desperate for a reaction. He came close and put bother of his hand on my waist and drew me close so our chests were touching. Seth, Seth, Rex, Rex, family, family. He kissed me softly, like a test run, but then he pressed into me.

Seth... Rex... f-.

I cracked, I melted into him. Once you fall in love, there's no going back, no matter how long ago it was, or how bad he hurt you. I kissed him back, it had been so long since we had been together. I wrapped my hands around his head to draw him closer. Apollo backed me up against my bed, and then pushed me down onto it. His lips were off mine as he took off his shirt. His body was literally sculpted by the gods. He snapped his fingers and the lights turned off. In those few seconds my sanity came back to me, Rex, I thought, you're betraying Rex. But as soon as the thoughts came, it went away again the moment he leaned down to kiss me again. His hands snaked up my shirt and I wanted to slow down, but the feeling passed and I didn't notice it anymore. I never noticed anything when he visited me, I was always lost, fighting different emotions, the ones for Apollo always beat out the ones against him.

When we had stopped kissing, Apollo started to whisper sweet nothing into my ear, I smiled at them. I was exhausted, my eyes closed as he wrapped himself around me, like he was my protector. I was on the verge of sleep when he whispered in my ear, "Deals off..."

When I woke up to the sun in my face coming from the window next to my bed, everything that happened last night came crashing down on my. I then realized that my arm was over a pillow where Apollo should have been. I sat up and looked around my room, everything was the same as it always was. No sign of Apollo but his words echoed in my head, was I ever going to see him again?

I looked out my window, there was a clear view of Nessa's house next door, but as I stared it closer, I noticed the glass started to fog up, like someone breathed on it. Suddenly an invisible finger drew a heart and in perfect loopy cursive two names were written inside, _Apollo + Layla_, it said. I covered my mouth with both my hands. I found myself punching my pillows and yelling in frustration.

Footsteps thundered to my room. Percy burst through my door, "Layla, what's wrong-"

He saw the drawing and went silent, Annabeth, who was standing behind him, gasped. I tried to wipe it off but it stayed on. I looked back at the window, the invisible finger wrote more underneath the heart, _Check out Hephaestus TV, channel 600. -Aphrodite_.

I threw myself out of bed and pushed past Percy and Annabeth, of course it was her, leave it to Aphrodite to ruin everything. My feet went down the stairs as fast as they could go. I took the remote out of sleeping Rachel's hand and turned on the TV. It powered on, seemingly as slow as possible, the local news channel popped up and I typed 600 into the remote. The channel switched and a picture of women with green tinted skin, probably a nymph, holding a microphone showed on the screen.

"Last night Apollo was spotted in Forks, Washington visiting with demigod Layla Brice, the daughter of Poseidon. But "visiting" would be an understatement, according to these pictures," The nymphs face was replaced by a picture of Apollo and I kissing intensely on my bed, then another of us asleep in each others arms. "There is a _lot_ more going on between the two than we know about. Zeus, the King of the gods, doesn't appear to be happy with Apollo having an affair with the other side. This morning Apollo was seen walking around Olympus, we tried to get a comment from him but this was all we got."

The nymph reporter looked down, waiting for the clip to play. We saw Apollo walking with his Ray Ban sunglasses on looking down at the ground seeming a little gloom. The camera shook as the cameraman ran up to him, "Apollo! Apollo! Do you have anything to say about the affair between you and Layla Brice?" Apollo kept walking and put his hand up to the camera, completely blocking the lens.

"As things heated up last night we have to wonder, how long has this been going on?Are they madly in love? How will Poseidon react to this? We have live commentary from Aphrodite now." The reporter said.

"It's the modern day Romeo and Juliet!" Aphrodite squealed. "This is better than Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase's relationship!"

I hit the _Power_ button on the remote, the TV screen went black. The room was silent, all three pairs of eyes on me. I could have taken off, stolen the Suburban and been gone in less than an hour. But there was no where to run to. Can't go to camp, everyone has probably seen the news. Can't go to the city because I'd be attacked by reporters and possibly Zeus, can't go to Seth's because I'd feel way too guilty, Nessa's was out of the question, it would be _way_ to awkward. I didn't even think of going to the ocean to conceal myself in the water because my father would bring all hell down on me. All I could do was face the music.

Mist appeared in front of my face, I saw the red face of Rex. He was practically steaming.

"You bitch!" He said holding a copy of Olympus Weekly, Apollo and I had made the front cover.

That stung, he had just drove a knife into my heart and twisted all the way in one direction and then in the other.

"Rex..."

"That's my dad!" Rex screamed, "You _slept_ with my dad!"

My face dripped with tears. I deserved it, all the words he was saying to me, I deserved it all.

"I didn't sleep with him." I whispered, it was barely audible I would be surprised if he even heard me. "I would never..."

"IT DOESN'T MATTER! You're a slut Layla, I should have know. Don't even know why I wasted my time."

Percy interrupted and waved the mist away before Rex could anything else. Percy stood in front of me and gave me a look of such disappointment that told me I was the worst sister ever.

"Why would you do this?" He asked, I heard a little hint of disgust in there.

I asked myself the same question and could barely come up with answer.

**Jacob's POV:**

I saw Nessa's car race up to the driveway and heard it screech to a stop. She came out of the car and slammed the door behind her, she ran to the door and I saw her come through the door. It was still early in the morning, what was she doing here?

"Jacob," She said breathlessly, "Last night I was procrastinating against doing the dishes and when I finally decided to do them I looked up through the window in front of the wink and well... you're not going to believe this..."

She raised her hand and touched my face. I saw Layla through her bedroom window, but that wasn't it, she was making out with some blonde guy and was _really_ getting into it.

Nessa took her hand away from my face, I was zapped back to reality.

"That's not all, that morning she came to the house and told me to tell Seth this," She reached out again.

This time I saw Layla blabbering on and on to Nessa, "_Can you please tell Seth that I want to be with him. To be his girlfriend I mean, it's just that I realized today, that I don't want to give up a guy that will love me and never hurt me. But can you also tell him that... something is going to happen tonight, just tell him that I'm so sorry... so sorry._" Layla said.

I came back to the real world. Trying to figure out what just happened.

"So let me get this straight," I said. "Layla came to you to tell Seth she wanted to be with him and blah blah blah, then cheated on him?"

"That's what it looks like." Nessa said. "But then she also said, 'Tell him I'm so sorry' like she knew what was going to happen that night."

"So she planned for her little buddy to come over that night."

"_Or_ she felt scared and that she might not of had a choice to do that." Nessa pointed out.

"I like my reason better because it didn't look like Layla was being forced to do anything."

Nessa gave me an annoyed look, "So what do we do now?"

"The only thing to do, tell Seth." I said.

"That will ruin him."

"I know, but we can't hide it from him, it will hurt him more once he figures it out and then finds out we didn't tell him."

I closed my eyes, dreading that conversation, and wondering why Layla would betray Seth like that.


	14. Disappointment

**Ok so just to let you know, this entire chapter was originally written on my iPod while my computer was down, that's why some of the paragraphs are shorter than usual. I hope I updated fast enough, the next chapter might not get up as fast because I have soccer and stuff, so yeah, sorry if it takes longer! Enjoy! -Aims**

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I kind of wished for a lot of things after that catastrophe, but I had no where to run. The rest of the day I stayed silent, everyone was either too shocked or too pissed to say a word. But I was glad for the silence even though it reflected disappointment, because a day of yelling was a day I wouldn't be able to take. I was actually grateful for school the next day because no one knew about my personal hell that lied at home. A break you could say, a breath of fresh air even though Ms. Atkins was still out to get me.

I ate lunch by myself like usual and even stayed late after school, planning on telling my brother that I had to work in a group project just so I could get out of the house a little longer. I walked home stopping at a local diner for some pie where I got another surprise. Of course.

There they were, Jake, Seth, and Nessa. They were sitting in a corner booth, all looking upset. Nessa saw me first and uncomfortably sat up straighter, Jake noticed me too, he nodded to Seth. Seth's back was to me but when he turned around I saw his expression which was sad and, wait for it, disappointed. I grabbed my slice of pie and walked over to them, trying to act like they were angry about something that has nothing to do with me. Which still could be the case.

"Hey," I said turning to Seth, "What's wrong?"

Jacob's hands balled up into fists and the veins in his neck strained.

"We need to talk," Seth said. "Outside."

"Yeah, of course." I told him acting concerned.

I set my pie down on the table and followed Seth outside into the rain. He walked straight to his truck. "Get in." He demanded.

I got in the passenger's side, Seth started up the vehicle and rolled out of the parking lot.

"So, what were you doing Saturday night Layla?"

I closed my eyes and touched my hand to my forehead, I was in deeper shit than I thought.

"I can explain..." I said.

"Oh really? This should be good, go on, tell me."

Was I really about to do this? Where do you start when explaining this kind of thing? I decided I would give him a short story and beg for mercy.

"Well...someone showed up, well not just _anyone_ but anyways, Apollo showed up," My mind flashed to last night when he said he loved me, _Stop it Layla, it's just Aphrodite playing tricks on you_. "Look, you have to know what it's like to be under their influence, there's nothing I could have done."

Lies.

"You always have a choice!" He yelled.

Seth's knuckles turned white from gripping the steering wheel so hard. He started the shake, the veins in his neck popped out like Jake's had in the diner.

"Maybe you should pull over." I said getting a little worried.

"I'm fine."

"Seth, you're not fine."

"DON'T TELL ME HOW TO FEEL!" He yelled.

I winced and jumped back in my seat. That hurt, but I had hurt him and now I was paying for my mistake. A stupid mistake that I should have stopped a long time ago.

"Look," My voice trembled. "Everyone I know is mad at me, even my best friend because believe it or not I hurt him a lot worse than I hurt you."

There it was, my stupid mood swing. I went from sad and scared to angry. It's a Poseidon thing. _Stop_, I said to myself, you'll just hurt him more. My throat burned with the words that I wanted to say to him but I managed to swallow them. We sat in silence as we drove along, when we pulled into my driveway I leaned my head against the head rest.

"Maybe you should come in, we can talk everything, I will explain everything."

Seth just looked at me, I wasn't exactly sure what his expression meant, "That would be nice."

I cracked a tiny smile and slipped out of the truck, heading up the stairs of the porch with Seth on my heels. I unlocked the door and the second I popped my head in I smelled it. Sea salt. I quickly turned and faced Seth, "Actually let's go to your house and talk."

Seth frowned, "But we've already gone to my house, I've never been to you're. Plus I think it will let me get to know you better."

I head footsteps behind me, I turned to see Percy walking towards me. Have I ever mentioned how intimidating he is when he's mad? All I wanted to was crawl into a corner because a mad Percy, is almost as bad as my father mad.

"I agree with Seth," he said, I shot him a look, he leaned down and whispered in my ear, "You're not getting out of this one. Come on in Seth, we're in the kitchen."

Seth looked at me, waiting for me to move out of the way so he could enter the house. Why was he so eager to go in? Everything seemed to scream to me NO! But I had to let him pass before Percy picked me up and threw me across the room. We sauntered across the room after I took off my rain coat. Before we entered the kitchen Percy and I both fixed our clothes and straightened up a little. Seth didn't get it.

There he was, sitting at our table like he had really been there taking care of us for real. His face was reasonably calm as he stared at Rachel who was sitting on the counter, but the moment he saw me. I refused to be intimidated by him.

"Poseidon," I said in an acknowledging tone like I really care that he was there. In our kitchen. Sitting in my chair.

He was wearing his usual attire, Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. His black beard was a bit over grown, like when Percy did No-Shave November. I gripped Seth's hand. Everyone except him knew why my father was here.

"Layla," Poseidon said reasonably calm, "Sit down."

"He gestured to the seat across from him at the table that wasn't there a second ago. I walked over there and sat, Seth stood behind my chair.

"I see you have made a friend, it's not as bad here as you thought it would be is it?" He was trying to lighten the mood before he blew my head off.

"If you must know, he's more than a friend." My dad seemed to be a little taken aback by this.

"Surprising due to your... current situation, but Seth already knew this, didn't he?" I didn't looked back at Seth to see his reaction to my dad knowing his name and being able to read emotions so well that it's almost like my dad could read minds. "Everyone on Olympus is buzzing about it, huge scandal. They will move on in a few days but down in my kingdom people are asking questions. Is it a strategy to get information from them, or is it the other way around? But to my disappointment, it's neither, just _shear stupidity_."

There it was again, disappointment, because that's all I really was, a huge disappointment. I'm the screw up. "And you think that I already don't know this? I'm not as think as you think."

"I am on the brink of war! I should not have to worry about my daughter... fooling around with gods! You should know better, Apollo's influence on humans and demigods is great. He will manipulate any girl to get what he wants, and I can guarantee he didn't get what he wanted or else this whole thing would be even worse!"

His voice was getting louder, usually it took a few minutes of conversation until we were screaming at each other, but this was almost right off the bat. This will be fun.

"Well you're right about that, but at least I didn't fall for those tricks like my mother did!"

Poseidon banged his fist on the metal table, leaving a dent, "We will _not_ have this conversation again."

"Of course not, because it will just remind you of her, and how you did _nothing_ to save her in that fire." My eyes dammed up with tears, I tried my best to not let them fall over the edge.

"I _couldn't_ do anything, you already know this."

"You don't realize the danger you put innocent people in father. I'm only sixteen and I don't have a mother, I'm practically homeless, I lived at camp for _six_ years, and now I live with my brother who, because of you, had to abandon his life in New York. All because you and the rest of gods can't seem to grow up even after 2,000 years of living!"

I was changing the subject, something I'm excellent at doing in a fight, my father hates it, I thrive off of it. He doesn't always scare me to the bone as easily as Percy. But Poseidon's aura kicked in and he glowed green.

"This doesn't change what you did Layla."

"I'm only human father, we make mistakes."

When I said this, he about snapped, he was done playing Mr. Nice Guy. Big Bad Daddy was about to come out. In his mind, I had just denied that I was his daughter by saying I was 'only human' and ignored the god part in me. My father's famous trident appeared in his hands.

"Seth, leave." I said just as Annabeth said it too.

He didn't budge until Percy yelled at him to get out. Seth scrambled out of the house. Poseidon's anger was practically visible by now. He stood up and walked towards me, the newly dented table moved away as he came closer. He was looking down on me, towering over me.

"I am ashamed," He said slowly, "To call you my daughter. You do not think before you do or say. You have embarrassed me with this predicament, and you have cost me a war."

The words stung, "You mean a war that hasn't even started yet?"

"I should punish you." He said, in my peripheral vision I could see Percy's eyes widen. "Maybe I should just sell you to Apollo in exchange for peace with Zeus, that's how we did it in the old days. And maybe when you're pregnant with his child and Apollo abandons you and Camp Half-Blood won't take you in, neither will I. Maybe then you'll realize just how big of a mistake that you have made."

The thing was, he was _dead serious_, nothing in his words hinted that he was lying. As if he was seriously considering it. I got scared right then, because he _wouldn't_ help me, I'd be scared, alone, pregnant at sixteen. Every girls worst nightmare even though it happens way too often. _So this is the Poseidon that you hear about in story books, reckless, brutal, and angry_, I thought. It only then occurred to me that maybe his more tame when he's around Percy and I. The trident glowed with power, he finally had the upper hand in this discussion, he knew it too. I was surprised that he didn't throw me through the wall then magically put it back together like it never happened, because he looked like he was seriously considering it.

"I _hate_ you." My voice was trembling when the words came out, I didn't know where they came from either, but it made Poseidon take a step back.

"Stay away from the ocean Layla." He said.

I turned around, there was a bright flash and he was gone. Percy was shaking his head. I couldn't be in that room with them, not where I clearly wasn't welcome anymore. I stood there, trying to take it in what just happened. I looked at Percy, I sent him an ESP message, _What's wrong with me?_ He shrugged. He didn't know either. I caught Rachel's gaze, she was the only one that looked sorry for me. Before I knew it my legs were moving, running outside felt like I was stuck in slow motion.

Seth was sitting in his truck, he had never left. I ran to his truck and hopped in. I could tell by the way he was staring aimlessly into the space ahead of him, that he was still comprehending what had just happened. It was his first encounter with a god, if he was going to be with me than it wasn't going to be his last, but it was the first meeting ever. I reached over and kissed him on the cheek, a thank-you for staying there for me.

"I knew you wouldn't leave me." I said.

"What happened in there?" Seth asked.

"You met my father, that's what."

"Is he always like that?"

I stayed quiet, "With me he is... we've never gotten along very well."

"Do you want to go to my place?"

I wanted to run away as far as possible, but I needed to be close by. "I think I have to stay here. I need to talk to my brother. He needs to know the whole story. I'll tell you someday, Seth. But there's only so much you can take in about my world in one night."

I opened the door, "Goodnight Seth."

I could tell that he wanted me to help him understand, understand my life and why I the things I do, why my father and I don't get a long, but how could I help him understand when I barely knew myself? I walked back onto my porch and took a breath. Walking back into the kitchen, I noticed that no one had moved, it seemed like not even a word had been uttered since the little show Poseidon and I had just put on.

"What you guys know, is only what you saw in pictures," I started slowly, "You all need to know the whole story. When I was twelve..."

And so I told them everything, Rachel, Annabeth, and Percy just sat there taking it all in. Percy's face changed a little when I got to the part when I knew I couldn't live up to him. When I was done, no said a word, I walked back up to my room. It was late already. My speech had taken a long time. Percy and Annabeth were right behind me, ready to go to bed too. It had been a long day, and tomorrow was no doubt, going to be another handful. I wasn't looking forward to school, I wasn't even looking forward to sleeping, I was too scared that my dad was going to send me bad dreams.

The second I opened my bedroom door, even just a crack, I something had changed. There was no tiny hint of a salty aroma in leaking from the crack. I turned on the light. All of the room was white. White walls, white bed and bedspread, white desk, white lamp, white wood floors. And that was it. No book shelf with pictures of my friends on them, no more books, no more camera, no more walls filled with amazing photography, no more green paint or cool comforter. The sand dollar necklace that was on my desk was gone, my drachmas probably gone too. My room had been stripped of originality, of any sign that I had ever lived in there. In my opinion, it was my dads way of disowning me.


	15. Through the Shadows

"Wait, how old are you again?" I asked Seth.

"Way too old." Jake teased,

Seth glared, "You're old too, you're practically a middle aged man. I'm still in my mid twenties though."

I must have looked shocked, but hey, I _was_ just recently involved with a two thousand year old creep. It had been a couple of weeks since I told Percy the whole story, a couple days later I told Seth, along with Jake and Nessa. At first I was skeptical letting Nessa know since she didn't really know me, but Jake told me that once she knew, I wouldn't have to explain the story again. Nessa could just "show" them. _That_ freaked me out a bit. Apparently that's how Jake and Seth found out Apollo and I, Nessa had seen me and him kissing and told Jake who told Seth.

Everything was just starting to go back to some kind of normal, we were all starting to get over what happened. I was ignoring the storms and hurricanes popping up all over the world. A constant cloud cover made sure I wasn't able to see the sun. My room remained white, I didn't try to add anything to it, I was afraid that it would just disappear the way it had before. I just kept it super messy so there was a little color to it, my clothes on the ground was a nice touch.

"If we keep phasing into our wolf form," Jake started to explain, "We don't age. But a lot of us imprinted and decided to grow old with their girlfriend. That's why we're all different ages, some imprinted faster, for other's it took years for the right one to show up. Plus, if you imprint on a five year old and you're twenty, it looks weird."

"So you stay sixteen for Nessa?" I asked him.

"Pretty much, I've known her since she was a baby."

"He'll probably die sixteen too," Seth joked. "Nessa doesn't age either, poor girl finally looks her own age."

"What do you mean?"

"Nessa is sort of like you, Layla," Jake said, "She's half human, so she just grew up differently. She aged fast and then just stopped."

I get chased by monsters and she never grows old. I wonder who got the shorter end of the stick? For the first time I wondered what the other half of Nessa was made up of. Seth came over to me and put an arm around my shoulder. We were outside of Seth's house, sitting on logs in his backyard.

"So you're really like... my brother's age." It was almost like I was going out with one of his friends. Which occurred to me is way weird.

"Well, when you say it that way..."

"No, it's just, wow. You're like... old." I said.

"Yeah, I think I get it."

"Sorry."

"Don't be sorry Layla." Jake said laughing a little.

I wondered way Jake hung around Seth because he was so much younger than him. I know I wouldn't stay. But then again, why do the gods get with humans? Not everything goes the way it should.

"Do you guys ever think about what it would be like if we were just regular humans?" I asked.

Jake huffed, "Life would be boring and I wouldn't have Nessa."

I turned to Seth, waiting for his answer, "I wouldn't have you. Do you think about it a lot?"

"Yeah," I said quietly, I felt a shift in the wind, the shadows moved, "Maybe my mom wouldn't be dead and my I didn't have problems with my dad... maybe my cousin Nico would leave me alone."

Seth and Jake looked confused, but I turned around and out of the shadow Nico appeared. He looked older since the last time I had seen him, his black hair was cut short and his leather jacket looked more worn. He looked a little disappointed.

"How did you know?" He asked.

"Nico, shadow travel is the only way you go _anywhere_ after a while you catch on." I stood up.

Seth came up from behind me and put his arm around my waist, trying to be protective. It wasn't really working but it made him feel better.

"Who is this?" Seth asked sounding annoyed.

"He's my cousin... I guess."

"He smells funny." Jake said on edge.

"You get used to it." Nico said.

"Why are you here?" If Nico just appeared, it meant he had bad news, he's only enjoyable when Percy invites him over to his apartment for a party of something, but even then he is still a bit of a loner. It's a shame, he's not that bad looking, if he actually talked to living people instead of the dead ones, he'd probably have a really pretty girlfriend.

"I have to take you to Olympus." He grumbled.

"Wait, what?" Seth brought me closer and Jake stood by his side, his veins were popping out of his neck again, he was smelling the death, thinking it was a threat. "Calm down Jake, he won't hurt you."

"I will if I have to." Nico reminded me.

"Why do I have to go to Olympus?"

"Zeus's order's."

"Since when do _you_ talk to _Zeus_?"

"Hermes ambushed me, said that he didn't have time to get over here, in return he paid my rent."

"So you expect me to go with you to Olympus and just ditch my boyfriend and brother?"

"Oh well," Nico shrugged his shoulders and gave me an evil smile, "You don't have a choice."

Maybe it was the tone of voice that Nico used, his pitch black eyes that were so hard to look into, or that trail of death that followed in his footsteps that made Jake phase right then and there. Though Nico was only amused by the huge wolf standing next to us.

"I see you're keeping some interesting company Layla." But at least I didn't hang out with dead people all day. "You know you have to come with me Layla, stop pretending you don't know, if you don't come with me Zeus will just zap you there himself. Probably through a lightning bolt, so I'd personally take the less painful way."

Why would I want to go to Olympus? The only thing Zeus wants is information about my dad, he knows I'm mad at him, he knows that this would be the best time to get information out of me. But doesn't he know that I don't know anything? I don't even know what they're fighting about, and personally I don't think I'd even _want_ to know, it's probably something totally stupid.

"Will Apollo be there?" I asked in Ancient Greek so Seth wouldn't hear.

"Maybe, why? Didn't get enough?" I wanted to slap him so badly.

"I'm still not going."

"I talked to Percy _and_ Annabeth, they both think you should go."

"No you didn't, if you did you would be a lot more tired than you are now from all that shadow traveling."

"You guys really need to start speaking English." Seth said.

I ignored him, "I refuse to keep being messed with by the gods, my father sends me here, Apollo makes me fall in love with him, Aphrodite made sure the whole world knew, and Zeus killed my mother, just like he killed yours. I _refuse_ to go."

Nico's face went slack, "I really don't want to have to do this Layla."

He started walking towards me, Jake moved in front of us, for protection.

"Someone please tell me whats going on." Seth said.

Nico disappeared, two seconds later he was by my side, "Don't." I told him, he touch my arm.

I was sucked into blackness. I clung to Nico, getting lost in the shadows isn't safe at all, you could be split in half, one part of you in one place, the other maybe a thousand miles away. It's extremely hard to explain, everything is real dark and it's like you're on a motorcycle with out sunglasses to protect your eyes from the wind. I always feel like something is going to pop up behind me and grab me. You can never see anything when you're shadow traveling either, sometimes you can see little parts of the country passing by you, but usually just... dark. Shadowy. Extremely sketchy.

It took ten minutes for us to get to New York. We went _fast_, Nico get's better at it every year. I caught my breath, Nico looked like he was going to faint. He had probably gone to Forks and back all in one day. We were outside the Empire State Building, New York City traffic buzzed around us, the city was so noisy compared to Forks. I put Nico's arm around my shoulder and dragged him to a nearby bench. We sat down, he rested his head against the building. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small square of ambrosia, as he munched on it you could see him slowly being revived.

"Why did you do that? You dragged me here against my will along with nearly killing yourself."

"I have no problem with death Layla." His voice was scratchy and low. I shut up.

I dug into my pocket for some quarters and walked to the payphone booth close by. I held the phone to my ear as I put the quarters in. I dialed Percy's number.

"Hello?" He asked after a few rings.

"Hey, it's Layla."

"Oh, what's up?"

"Nico kidnapped me, that's what." I said angered.

"_What_?"

"Hermes said he'd pay his rent if he went to Forks to get me and bring me to Olympus. Anyways I called you to tell you that I'm in New York right now, so I probably won't be home tonight." I explained, still angry.

The line was silent, then Percy sighed, "If Hermes sent _Nico_ of all people to get you, it has to be serious, I think you need to tough it out and go up there, for whatever the gods need you for."

"But what if it's..." It finally struck me, the worst scenario came to me. "What if dad is putting my life on trial? What if he's going to give me to Apollo for peace? He wasn't lying when he said that they did that way back when, I Googled it and everything." My eyes started to well up with tears. "I'm only sixteen."

"I wouldn't let that happen to my little sister, Poseidon just said that to scare you, obviously it worked."

"You were there Percy, you know he was dead serious."

"You still can't run Layla, you can't hide from the gods, they will find you. Your best chance, for whatever they want you for, it just to go up there and stand your ground like your good at."

"_Please enter 25 cents for another minute_." Said the monotone voiced machine.

"I have to go. I'll see you when I see you." I hung up the phone without waiting for his response.

I waited for a couple seconds for my tears to pass before I made the next call so it was evident that I was upset. I put in more quarters. And dialed Seth's number. Straight to voice mail, he probably let his cell die. I dialed Jake's cell. He picked up on the last ring.

"Hello."

"Hey it's Layla," I said quickly, glad he picked up."Don't freak out, I'm in New York, safe."

"Oh...I didn't like that guy, he smells like death, and he transport himself, that's just sketchy." Jake said.

"Yeah, Nico is the son of Hades, the god of the Underworld and death. You know, the cheerful stuff. Look, tell Seth that I'm okay, and I'll be back in a couple of days. Oh and Jake?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't let him follow me, your kind isn't welcome in my world."

"I'll try, I'm having a hard time not getting on a plane right now myself, but I'll tell him."

"See later Jake."

"Bye."

I hung up and took a breath. It was time. I walked over to Nico.

"Get up, we're going."

He laughed, "No, _you're_ going, I get to go back to my apartment knowing that the rent is paid. My job is done, good seeing you again Layla."

"Nico wait-!" But he was already gone.

I looked up at the building, realizing I was alone again. My feet carried me into the lobby of the Empire State Building. I had only been there a couple of times but the man behind the desk already ready for me. He was expecting me. _They_ were expecting me. I took the key and walked to the elevator, no one but me was in waiting for. When I walked in and the doors closed, after I put in the key and pushed the 600 button, all I could think about was how claustrophobic I was getting. The elevator couldn't have moved slow enough, or fast enough, it just moseyed up, not knowing that this could be my last ride in it as a free human. I'd probably be free again, you know, _after_ I was impregnated. But it's cool.

When the door opened to a beautiful yet stormy Olympus, I knew I was headed for trouble.

* * *

**Ok so that chapter was a little short because there was a lot of talking parts, but I still hope you liked it! Oh and I definitely forgot how they go into Olympus and I don't have my books with me at the moment so if it's not right then you're just going to have to live it. Sorry. Review if you want! I'm not going to be one of those people that puts in all caps for you to review and then threaten you or something. So yeah, next chap should be out soon! -Aims**


	16. Embarrassment

** Jacob's POV:**

"She's _where?_" Seth asked.

"New York, same place I said two seconds ago."

"How did she get there so fast?"

"I don't know, that Nico guy probably."

What the weird smelling kid did mystified me so much, he was one place and then another, then he and Layla were just... _gone_. It wasn't like vampire-super-fast movement, it was something else, he literally _disappeared_ and reappeared in a different spot. Layla had said something about shadow traveling. That must have been what he was doing.

"Then we're going to New York, that has got to be where Olympus is. Isn't that where Nico wanted to take her? I'll book the tickets now."

"Seth," I said, "No. Layla told me not to let you go. She said that 'Our kind isn't welcome there', we're probably going to get our self's killed."

"Oh yeah? When has that _ever_ stopped you Jacob, huh?" He said. "What if it was Nessa?"

I looked away.

**Layla's POV:**

That path through the mountain never looked so cruel, a storm, invisible to the mortal world, swirled around the summit where the throne room is. I walked slowly down the cobblestone path, my knife in my hand. It was probably a bad idea to have it out but whatever, I was here wasn't I? I hadn't ran once Nico disappeared, I went up the elevator and down the road, isn't that enough? By now I should have the right to carry my own knife around.

"_Layla_," Someone whispered in my ear, I looked to my right and no one was there, the voice giggled. _Aphrodite_. "_He's waiting for you_."

Don't listen to her, I said to myself, she's just playing with you. I kept walking, by now I had come to the part of the city where the people lived, all the minor gods, demigods, satyrs, nymphs, everyone. I passed through the market where merchants tried to sell me wine and bread. I saw gossips looking at me while they talked by the fountain. I should be old news by now, had I come two weeks ago I would have been swarmed by reporters and shunned by the people living in the city. Everyone had already moved on and forgotten, which for me was a blessing. But even though everyone had _else_ had moved on, _I_ hadn't, I knew that my affair with Apollo would haunt me for the rest of my life. That was something I would have to come to accept, in time it would be a lesson learned, for now it was a regretful mistake that has torn me and my family apart. That was the thing everyone forgot about too, the people here just thought was being rebellious and stupid demigod, which is true, but had it ever occurred to anyone that this had ruined my life? No, because it's fun to watch others mess up.

As I hiked higher and higher the city disappeared and more temples and statues dedicated to gods appeared, and then, I saw it: the throne room. Well, a more appropriate name for it would be throne _stadium_. As I got closer and closer my heart started to beat faster and faster.

This is it, I thought as I approached the throne room doors. Let's just make it clear that the throne room doors are the size of a five story building and wider than a house, stepping through them isn't even like going through a doorway, just an opening. I took a big gulp, like I said before, the room is more like a stadium, the twelve Olympians all have their thrones on the ground and all the minor gods have _their_ thrones up where stands would be in an arena, so they can observe what goes on below.

No minor gods were there today though, but all of the Olympians were, including my father. _This doesn't happen,_ I thought, _the gods don't just get together like this. _The hearth burned in the center of the room, Hestia sat close by to tend it. I expected all eyes to be on me, but they weren't, instead they were focused on the four other girls sitting in a line in front of the gods. Their heads hung low, ashamed, by the looks on some of the gods, I could tell that they were ashamed too. Some of the gods' eyes shifted towards me, but Athena and Demeter's eyes stayed fixed on the girls.

"We saved you a seat!" Aphrodite added.

On the end of the line of girls was one more chair, as I got closer I felt the heat of the fire and my palms started to sweat. I sat down and looked at the other girls. Sitting right next to me was one of my best friends.

"Amelia?" I said.

She looked up just a little and whispered, "He fooled us all."

When she looked back down I just sat up straighter, I was going to do what Percy told me to do, hold my ground, try not to show weakness, change the subject when needed, and not let the gods wiggle their way into my head like they have already done to the other three.

"Ms. Brice, glad to see you made it." Said Zeus clearly annoyed, but I bowed my head anyways.

"Good, can we start now?" Aphrodite whined.

"Please, I _am_ quite busy you know." Hermes chimed in.

"Yes, yes, we have been waiting around here long enough." Zeus said hushing them, "The Olympian Council is in session, we are here today to because of Jessica Lemke, the daughter of Dionysus, Rebecca Leonard, the daughter of Athena, Amelia Wright, the daughter of Demeter, Kristen Newberry, daughter of Hephaestus, and Layla Brice, the daughter of Poseidon. In the last four years all of these girls have had an affair with one of our own, Apollo. Half a decade ago at the Winter Solstice meeting Aphrodite was positive a demigod was no smarter than a human when it came to love, that even after they knew what the gods have done to their lovers they could still fall in love with them.

"Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Hermes, Hera, and I all agreed to this statement. Though Demeter, Athena, Dionysus, Poseidon, and Hephaestus disagreed, saying, no half-blood would ever fall in love with a god."

Realization came crashing down on me, was this all just a bet? Just a heated conversation taken to new extremes? I looked over to Apollo in his 40 foot form, he was touching his hands to his head, trying to hide his face, was he embarrassed by all of this? By how he was the only one used in this cruel set up?

"So we proved them wrong with a plan, have each one of their daughters fall in love with Apollo. At first we weren't going to use Layla, for Poseidon and I had just gotten over a disagreement and for once I decided that I wanted a break. But Layla's venerable situation on her first quest was an opportunity we couldn't pass up."

"You see Layla," Apollo said to me, "You were the easiest to get out of all of the other girls, you were so _desperate_ to live up to your brother, that you would do anything to be come home victorious. Even if it meant striking up a deal with a god."

I lurched up from my chair, ready to tell him off, but something slammed me back into the hard seat and restricted my throat from making any noise. I was forced to looked forward at the self satisfied smile of Zeus. My eyes looked towards my father, his anger was growing with mine, but it didn't look like he could do anything to object either.

"You may all have noticed the... aggressive weather lately," Zeus started up again, "This was only because Poseidon was angered more and more as we found out about the girls. But none of the affairs were made public, except for his own daughter's. That was Aphrodite's idea of course."

How could they do this to us? We weren't experiments or their _pawns_, we were their own children! Did their respect end at themselves? Obviously. But I had to remember that Athena, Demeter, Dionysus, and my father didn't offer us up for this experiment either, but they were still pissed off because we had tested positive for the love bug. Because some how this still get's turned on the half-blood. It was a stupid idea to try to prove the other gods wrong the way Zeus did, it didn't earn him any of the brownie points he was in need of, it just turned everyone against each other. I had a feeling the blame game was just about to start.

"Why couldn't you have just done this to _one_ of the girls?" Demeter said, trying to restrain herself, "This could have been a lot more civilized then."

"If I had chosen just _one_ of your girls then the rest of you would just say that none of _your_ children would fall for Apollo. The only way you could all be proven wrong was if it affected you personally."

If I wasn't apart of this, I would have agreed that it was a really good plan, but now it just seemed incredibly life ruining and disrespectful.

"I _cannot_ believe you Rebecca." Athena scoffed.

Rebecca gave her mother a pleading look for forgiveness. I've been in her shoes, for split seconds, in those moments I was halfway there, ready to just give up and be scared for once. Scared for what comes next, what our parents would do to us if anything at all. The hopeful thinking was just to keep us sane, we all knew that we couldn't get away from this cleanly.

"I can't be perfect, I'm _not_ perfect, so why do expect me to be?" Rebecca said to her mother.

"I don't expect you to be perfect, but I do expect that you show a _little_ wisdom every now and then." Athena said sternly.

"You don't understand..." Rebecca put her face into her hands.

She was right too, Athena didn't understand, the gods may be smart with years of experience and everything, but in the end they're just really thick minded. If we were all gods we'd be fine, but we're not, they don't make gods anymore, we're the next best thing and obviously we don't measure up. It's the human factor, that's probably what they're all thinking.

Once I noticed Hephaestus's intense glare at Apollo, I found it extremely hard to ignore, there was some severe hate going on inside him. I wouldn't be surprised if Apollo started on fire right then and there, or a massive, unexplained forest fire broke out. Or the way my father's hand was gripped so tightly to him trident that his knuckles were white. Dionysus looked like he was trying his best not to strangle Apollo with grape vines. Demeter just looked shell shocked.

I wanted so badly to ask Amelia who _she_ got involved with Apollo too, how she dealt with the guilt of having to see Rex every day, but Zeus still had my throat restricted. Or how Rebecca of all people (she's a mini Annabeth) fell for the Sun god. Maybe he ambushed Kristen in the forges of camp and asked her to make him a special arrow and pretended he wanted more just as an excuse to come back. What if he caught Jessica making wine (Dionysus kids aren't suppose to make wine if they're under 21) and said he would tell her dad if she did him a favor. Apollo was smart and irresistible, the worst combination out there.

"Did you ever think that you might have taken this too far?" Dionysus said in rage.

"I could have made it go farther." Zeus said back.

"What if it was Thalia?" Athena said to him.

"Leave Thalia out of this, she would never do something like this." Artemis cut in.

"Is that a challenge sis?" Apollo countered.

Artemis stood from her throne, "You will stay away from my hunters the way you have for centuries."

I closed my eyes wishing it would all go away, couldn't they just stop fighting for a couple hours? Even though Seth was back in Forks, I just wanted to be back at camp. I wanted everything to be back to normal, when all I had was guilt and Rex didn't know anything. No one would stare at me and whisper that I was the sucker who had a thing with Apollo. Maybe secretly some of the girls would be jealous, but it wouldn't be likely that they would admit it. The things they would call me if I went back now, things used to be fine, but now it's just all messed up.

"Why are we here again?" Jessica whispered.

Artemis sat down and the gods got quiet, their glances shifted around, did they even know?

"Evidence?" Hera guessed.

"I was thinking more like public shame." Ares said after her.

I looked at Poseidon with wide eyes trying to send him a message to get my voice back even though he wasn't the one who took it in the first place. Hadn't I been public shamed enough? Front cover on Olympus Weekly _and_ a story on Hephaestus TV is enough public shame for anybody. This meeting could have _definitely_ gone on without me being dragged here.

"Can we hurry this up?" Apollo said. "I have to go to a ping pong tournament in an hour."

"Oh my gods you _actually_ still do that?" I said rolling my eyes, I said it without really thinking but it took a moment to realize that I could talk again.

But it seemed like I was just being silent the entire time, just like the way when Jessica spoke up, everyone's eyes were on me. It seemed so hidden and unrelatable but the fact that I knew about Apollo's ping pong tournaments was just like Ares said, evidence, that I had fallen in love with him, that I had known him.

"You were the one who got me into ping pong, Layla." Apollo said slowly, trying to be sentimental, trying to bring back the days when we went into the Big House's basement to the old ping pong table and played for hours even though I sucked at it. They were simple, stupid memories that shouldn't have any effect on a person.

"Oh shut up, you're two thousand years old, you played for years before you played with me." I snapped at him.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Aphrodite smile a little, she was enjoying my irritation. All of the gods that thought that we would fall for Apollo were secretly amused even though they didn't want to admit it. In their attempt to prove that I was in love with him just made me want to counter everything they said.

"Kristen, darling," Aphrodite said, still looking at me. "When did you first figure out that you were in love with Apollo?"

"I'm not in love with him." She said.

"Honey, look who your talking to, it was my idea to set you two up. You're what we call _easy_."

Hephaestus's entire throne set fire, his distant wife had gone too far. "Stop it, Aphrodite."

"I'm only questioning her, like Hera said, they're evidence."

"She's still my daughter."

Aphrodite turned back to Kristen, "Tell me," Her voice sounding persuasive than normal, power was leaking out of the words.

Kristen hesitated but spilled, she couldn't resist the goddess's power, "A couple years ago... but then he stopped coming back."

"And Rebecca?"

The other four girls seemed to be locked in a trance except for me.

"Apollo knew that I was having a hard time at camp, that my siblings were disappointed in me, he made it all go away. Last year, I never wanted him to leave. And then he just disappeared."

A self satisfied smirk appeared on the love goddess's beautiful face, "Jessica?"

"I tried to run away from camp, he stopped me a couple miles away from Half-Blood Hill, he told me to trust him when he said it would get better, it was three years ago."

"What about you Amelia?"

"I..." Amelia stuttered, "I was going to see my friend, Rex, at his cabin but Apollo got to me first, it was just this summer."

I looked at Amelia, stunned. This summer? That recent? I looked over to Apollo, he stared back at me. _She's my friend, how could you do this to the _both_ of us?_ I thought. He looked away as if to say 'I'm sorry' but Zeus was right, I was just a pawn, others don't feel sorry for pawns.

"Layla, most scandalous for last, tell us, how _you_ fall in love with Apollo." Aphrodite said with a devilish grin.

"Why don't you just ask him, or is he too embarrassed?" I said to her.

"I think _your_ the embarrassed one Layla."

"Of course I am, I almost lost my boyfriend and worst of all I lost my best friend just because you had to prove a point. I already had problems getting along with my father and now he can barely look at me, he threatened to sell my soul but no big deal, I fell in love with a god and that's all that matter's to you. So yeah, I'm extremely embarrassed."

Athena whispered something into Demeter's ear and nodded, Ares shifted in his throne, Aphrodite was trying to stare me down, Poseidon still wouldn't look at me, Zeus looked annoyed, and Apollo couldn't stop looking at all of us.

"We will finish this tomorrow at noon." Zeus said.

"What?" Aphrodite protested, "I almost have her!"

"_We will finish this tomorrow_." Zeus demanded, the love goddess shrunk into her throne and disappeared.

One by one the gods flashed away, grumbling about how short the meeting had been and leaving the five of us alone. I got up and walked out of the throne room, I tried to walk as fast as I could through the Olympus. I needed to get out of there, the meeting was done but I still had to stick around for tomorrow. When I got to the elevator I saw that Amelia was behind me, I didn't want to talk to her, the doors closed just before she got close enough to stop it. Alone in the elevator I looked up at the dial that showed the levels passing by. I decided that I wasn't going to cry about this whole ordeal the way I had been over the last month so I turned and punched the wall. My knuckles stung and I shook out my hand just to do it a couple more times. I was so mad, when I got to the mortal levels and people started to file inside the elevator with me I hid my bloody left hand behind my back.

As I walked through the lobby the man behind the desk nodded at me. New York City was still bustling like it had for centuries, it never stopped. People were always busy, workaholics that didn't have enough time for a good love life passed by me in their expensive suits, needing to get to their next meeting.

Somehow I ended up at an apartment building, in front of door that's numbers were 818. I took a breath and knocked.

"Layla," The women said as she answered the door, "What are you doing here?"

"Hi Sally, I'm in town for a couple of day, do you think I could spend the night?"

* * *

**Sorry this took so long! Also if there's typos, and that I don't know when I'm going to update again, but I hope sometime this month. Hope you enjoyed it! Review if you feel like it! -Aims  
**


	17. Forever

**Jacob's POV:**

I don't know why, but I have always hated airports, the constant movement and rushing around along with the endless noises of loud jets struggling to define the laws of gravity, just irritated me. So arriving in New York with just a carry on bag between Seth and I and only a hundred bucks in our pocket, competing with other people for a cab, not exactly sure where we going yet, at 2 am, was quite the experience. I had learned a lot in that last twelve hours, one, ticket counter people aren't friendly, two, red eye flights suck, three, it's impossible to sleep during a red eye flights because the seat you're sitting is half your size and a baby is always crying, and four, Seth is a worrier.

While I tried to get comfortable in those miniscule chairs Seth wouldn't shut up, 'What if Layla is just going back to Apollo?' 'What if Layla gets hurt?' 'We don't even know where she is... what if she's just going back to that camp place so she can run away?' 'What if Layla doesn't even like me?' He wouldn't be quiet with the 'what if' crap, I almost turned and punched him in the face a couple times, but somehow I resisted, tempting it was. The worst part was while I was squirming around, Seth actually got some sleep. Of course he got the window seat that he could lean against, and I had the awkward middle seat sitting next to an overweight man with no personal hygiene.

Plane ride from hell? I think yes.

When we got our cab and the driver asked us where we were going I just said to take us to the cheapest hotel in the city. We ended up at the Red Roof Inn, which wasn't cheap at all.

Seth laid down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. "Jake?"

"Hmm?"

"Have you told Nessa yet?" He asked.

"Told her what?"

"About how you and Bella had a thing a while back?"

Oh. "No, not yet."

"I think you should," He said sleepily. "Because if you think about it, you're in the same situation at Layla, Apollo was her best friends dad, Bella is your girlfriends mom, she kept it a secret, and she says that everybody hates her. All I'm saying is, talk it over with Bella so you can tell her together, because it's already been sixteen years, don't you think Nessa deserves... to know...?"

I looked over to him, it sounded like that last sentence took all the energy out of him, because he was fast asleep now. Seth was right though, I needed to tell her. Even though she would hate me, the way Layla's friend hated her.

Layla. I didn't even want to think about how we were going to find her, I was just going to leave that to Seth, because the moment I hit the twin sized bed I was out.

**Layla's POV:**

Scrambled eggs sizzled in the pan the next day and toast popped out of the toaster the next morning. I had woken up early, Paul was getting ready to go to his school and Sally was making us breakfast since she stayed home and wrote. Yesterday was actually pretty awkward, we did a lot of catching up but we didn't talk about why I was here or how I got out of school. Sally mostly asked me about how Annabeth was doing and how excited she was to be a grandmother even though it meant she was actually getting old. She didn't mention the weather or ask me about my father. I was grateful for that, but it was Paul who brought up the big question that morning.

"So, I never got the chance to ask, but what brings you to New York, aren't you suppose to be in school?" Paul asked as he was digging into his eggs.

"My trip here was quite... last minute, I just have some unsolved business on Olympus."

"I'm surprised Percy isn't with you." Sally said.

"Well... he wasn't exactly invited." She got an _Ohhhh_ look on her face.

"What time do you need to be at Olympus? I could give you a ride so you don't have to pay for a cab."

"I'm guessing around noon."

"Guessing?"

"Well they didn't exactly give us a specific time." I shrugged my shoulders and smiled, "Gods you know?"

Paul let out a nervous chuckle and looked at his watch, "Oh, look at the time, I'm late, thank you for the breakfast dear. Layla, I hope to see you soon."

He kissed Sally on the forehead, got his briefcase and was off. It was just Sally and I now. She knew something was up.

"Why are you really here Layla?"

I hesitated, "The gods are angry that's all."

"At you?"

"Well... sort of. Poseidon is anyway..."

"Don't go picking fights with him, you know better."

"Too late for that."

"What did you do?"

"It's a long story."

"We have time." Sally said trying to get it out of me.

"It's really not worth repeating."

* * *

It was 11:30, Sally and I were stuck in traffic. Of course. We were just a few blocks away from the Empire State Building but at this pace I would still be late. Sally's little blue car was lost in a sea of yellow taxis.

"I'm sorry this is talking so long."

"No it's fine." I said back.

I glanced around the street, looking for something to look at. I turned on the radio to help me ease my nerves. The radio was auto-set to some jazz station, the zingy sound of the saxophone didn't help, I flipped to the next preset, country, gross. The next, a talk show. I turned the radio off in frustration, the awkward, no conversation car ride was back. I looked out my window.

At first, when I saw them, I did a double take, there was _no way_ they were here in New York. I convinced myself it wasn't them. But then I looked again, the two huge Indian guys trying to navigate their way through the sea of people on the sidewalks looked completely out of place and lost. And let's be honest, it's hard to stand out in New York.

"Stop the car." I said.

"What?" Sally asked.

I opened the car door, we were at a stand still anyways, horns erupted from the car behind us, I glared at them, "I'll be back, just keep driving, I'll catch up in a few minutes."

I ran through the other waiting cars, and onto the sidewalk, I started to walk quickly so I could catch up to Seth and Jake, they weren't that hard to pick out of the crowd either. Once I got up behind them I reached out and tugged on Seth's shoulder.

"Hey man do you mind-" Seth said a little pissed as he turned, but then his eyes got wide, "Layla!"

He pulled me into a hug but I didn't hug back.

"That was easy." Jake huffed.

"What are you two _doing_ here. You should be back in Washington." I said practically fuming.

"I came for you, that guy, Nico, I don't trust him. I don't trust whoever wants you here either. I'm here to protect you." Seth said to me.

"Nico is my cousin, just because he smells weird doesn't mean he can't be trusted, it's who he is. And I don't need protection Seth, _nothing_ in this world can protect me from the power of the gods. There is nothing for you to do here. You can't even go to Olympus anyways, you're not apart of the Ancient Greek culture. I'm sorry that you traveled here for nothing. But there really isn't anything you can do. Oh and you're right, you can't trust the gods, but I wouldn't go around saying that, one of them might just strike you down and not even feel sorry about it."

I looked up at the sky and thunder rumbled, yet there were no clouds in the sky. Seth looked hurt, Jake looked seriously annoyed.

"Then we'll wait." Jake said.

"What?"

"We'll wait for you, we're not going home until we know you're safe. I didn't get on a seven hour red eye flight just to have to turn back around okay? So just lead the way and we'll follow and wait."

I raised an eyebrow, they were seriously being over protective, but there was no way I was going to be able to shake them off. I looked around for Sally's car and pointed at it.

"See that car?" I asked. "That's my ride."

"Is the driver of the car okay with us coming along?" Jake asked.

"Ha, you just said you had a seven hour flight, I think you need to stretch those legs out Jake, walking is good for you." I told him. "See ya later boys."

I jogged back to the car, managing to dodge other moving vehicles on my way there.

"Who were they?" Sally asked.

"Just... my boyfriend and his friend. They followed me here, despite me telling them _not_ to." She gave me a confused look. "They know... about me."

"Oh, that changes things."

A bit.

When we got to the Empire State Building I thanked Sally for the ride and for a place to stay so last minute, she told me I could stay there whenever, and to tell Percy that she says hello and that she loves him, same with Annabeth. She was so nice, every time I visited New York and stopped by Sally and Paul's I was reminded about what it's like to have a mom. And a dad. They practically adopted me the moment Percy told them that I was his new sister. I never really had a _real_ family either, no dad or brother, just my mom and I, flying solo.

I saw Jake and Seth crossing the street, approaching me.

"What are we doing here?" Seth asked, looking up at the structure. "I thought you were taking us to Olympus."

"First of all, you're waiting here, in the lobby or outside, you're _not_ going to Olympus, and second of all, this _is_ Olympus. 600th floor baby."

"Okay, Layla, the Empire State Building doesn't have 600 floors." Jake said.

"Jake, judging by whats happened in the past month, there's no reason for you _not_ to believe me."

Jake shrugged. He needs to learn that most of the time I'm right.

"So just stay here, get some Starbucks, this will probably take an hour... or two." I turned to leave but Seth grabbed my arm and pulled me into a kiss. I jerked my head back and looked at the floor, when I looked back at him, he looked confused.

"What's wrong?"

"I just..."

"She's just too confused right now to know what she wants." A sly voice said from behind me. "But you already knew that Seth, didn't you?"

I turned around, but I already knew who the voice belonged too. Aphrodite was wearing short, flowy, champagne colored dress with bright red lipstick, her long brown hair tumbled around her shoulder's in loose curls. Gorgeous as always, yet menacing as ever.

I looked at Seth and Jake, they were drooling over her, "This is Aphrodite, goddess of love." I said in a dull voice.

"Come on Layla, the meeting starts any minute now, it's time for you to confess." It was a short run in, but just enough to make an impression.

"I'll see you later." I said to Seth and Jake.

Aphrodite walked with me into the elevator. I admired her confidence as she strutted up to the doors in her short dress. I watched as her appearance changed as a different man laid their eyes on her. She was tall, then short, blonde hair, then bright red, her clothes and make up changed too, from biker chick, to sexy business women. She was every man's dream. But love is tricky, hard to figure out, and so was she.

When we approached Olympus's village, I was beat red the entire time, people snickered from all angles. Layla Brice walking with the goddess of love, people wondered what force could possibly make us walk together. But then, when we were out of the way of others, near a statue of some minor god, Aphrodite finally stopped me.

"I'll leave you alone." She said to me, but then her gaze shifted to over my shoulder. "For five minutes."

I looked behind me. He was there. I looked back at Aphrodite, but she was gone. I turned around to face Apollo. He dashed to me and pulled me over to the statue and sat me down on a near by bench.

"Layla..." I looked away. "Let me explain-"

"There's nothing to explain!" I said exasperated.

"But there is, if you just listen-"

"Stop it. Stop trying to explain, stop trying to make this right. Did you _actually_ think about what you were doing the moment you first even laid _eyes_ on me?"

He was silent for a little while but then he said, "No. I thought this was going to be easy with you. I didn't expect myself even to like you, but here I am, in _love_ with someone who hates me. The one girl that I actually love is the one girl that I screwed everything up with."

_Stop trying to bring it back_.

"Apollo," I started, "I'm going to ask you one important question, _who is my best friend?_"

The sun god looked at his feet, "My son..."

"Your son."

"I'm going to prove it to you, what I would do for you, I'll prove it to you."

* * *

If today's meeting seemed any different than yesterday's meeting, it was the people. Minor gods were in their thrones, not a lot, but the few that were hanging around. The Hephaestus TV crew was here to film the process, they hadn't know the gravity of yesterday's meeting, now they were making up for lost time. There were even a couple older demigods and nymphs in the crowd, ready to watch possible drama to go down.

Amelia, Rebecca, Jessica, Kristen and I were in our chairs, facing the gods once more. I had no idea were they had spent the night but I hoped it wasn't on Olympus. They didn't seem as ashamed as they were yesterday, maybe it was because now they knew they weren't going to be killed by their parents because of what they had done. Which was good, they needed the confidence that didn't seem to exist anymore for any of us. Or the little that barely seemed to show.

All of the Olympians were sitting in their throne's, leaning over and chatting to the god next to them like we weren't there. Each of them agreeing or bickering with another god because they just couldn't manage to stay on each others side for _too_ long. That was just too easy. Everything had to be complicated.

Zeus clapped his hands together once, a boom echoed through the throne room, the gods came to attention, silence replaced the murmurs and scolding. "We are here to finish yesterday's meeting. Aphrodite, you may finish questioning Ms. Brice."

Aphrodite smiled and looked at me with a hint of evil in her eyes.

"Oh Layla," She said, "What are we going to do with you?"

The other girls glanced over to me and I stood up straighter in my chair. I stole a quick glance over to Poseidon, he was focused on Aphrodite's next move. So was I.

"You and Apollo's affair was the _only_ one to be publicized, you woke up to the _whole_ world knowing about what you had done. Even your best friend, Rex, who is Apollo's son. Your affair was _also_ the longest out of all of the other girls. Four years. You were just twelve years old when you met Apollo for the first time." I had a feeling that the only reason why the goddess of love was explaining all of this was for good TV, so the rest of the world could humiliate me just a little bit more. "Thirteen when you really fell in love with him. But the guilt was getting worse, you were fighting feelings for Rex at the time too. You still are, even now that you have your werewolf boyfriend, even though you're still in love with Apollo. Like mother like daughter. Just admit it and you can go, even though I know its true, you have to say it. Say you're in love with Apollo."

Aphrodite said, '_Like mother like daughter_' what the heck was that suppose to mean? I looked at my father, he looked away from my stare.

Amelia leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Don't do it. Stay strong. _Don't say it_."

I looked back over to my father, he looked uncomfortable in his huge throne, all 40 feet of him. His eyebrows were scrunched together, his hands gripped the ends of the arm rests, he almost looked small. His little girl was living proof that he was wrong. My eyes drifted to Apollo, he looked desperate for me to say yes. This was his chance, his chance to do what he said he was.

"I... I..." I stumbled over my words, "I... am-"

"WAIT!" I whipped my head over to Apollo, his arm was reached out, he looked almost scared.

He stood up from his throne and walked towards me, he shrunk in size as he got closer until he looked human again. I looked up at him.

"Don't say it." He said, more calmly. "Instead answer me this."

He got down on one knee, eye level with me. A ring appeared out of nowhere. Was he really doing this? Was he really being stupid enough to do this? _Don't do this_, I thought to myself. The gods gasped, the cameras zoomed in. The other girls murmured things under their breath.

"Layla Brice, will you marry me? You can be my immortal wife, we can live where ever we want, we can live together _forever_, just like all of those silly fairy tales we make fun of. If you say yes, I swear on the River Styx that I will never have another child that isn't yours, I will never see another women for as long as we live. I will be yours, you will be mine. Just say yes. I know you don't have any reason to trust me, I know that you're in a tight spot right now, I know that. I told you that I would prove to you how much I love you. _Please_, I may have said a lot of things but I wasn't lying whenever I said that I needed you. I'm _begging_ you, say yes."

I closed my eyes. Can't this all go away? Why was he doing this. He knew I couldn't say yes. I'm only _sixteen_, well seventeen in a couple of months but _still!_ I'm not even legal yet. Plus I have a boyfriend. But the way he was looking at me was the same way he was looking at me last month, when I caved, when I realized that Apollo had made a mark. One that wouldn't be going away anytime soon. Why did I have to _marry_ him just to be with him? That was the thing, I couldn't just _be_ with a god, I had to commit, and committing to a god isn't just till death, gods don't die, this is _forever_. Am I ready for forever? Am I ready to break another guys heart, plus Rex's, my father's, possibly my brother's, and maybe my other best friend, Amelia, who just happened to be in the same situation as me minus the ring?

No.

So why was I still considering this?

"Apollo..." I started. "I think... I think I need some time. To think. About this."

I closed his hand over the ring and stood up.

"May I please be excused?" I said to Zeus, he nodded, and I bowed to the gods and looked at my father.

He was pale, he was furious, but he scared. He didn't want to lose me, not to Apollo, but what scared him the most is that he didn't know what I would say. It scared me too. I looked at the other gods, most of them seemed shocked, others seemed pissed, like Athena. She was probably thinking about how they were just getting what they wanted if I said yes. But the decision hadn't been made yet.

I didn't really remember the walk back to the elevator, I was just lost. All I could hear was the sounds of TVs barking out the breaking news. I could see people whispering all around me. Like always. The elevator shot me down the several floors until I got to the bottom. I almost forgot to step out. That's how out of it I was. Seth and Jake were sitting on a bench talking on a cell phone, looking bored out of their minds. The wind blew, the sun went away, I looked up at the building, clouds were swirling.

Seth stood up when he first saw me.

"How was it?" Then he saw my face. "What happened?"

"Can I use your cell Jake?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah."

He took it out of his pocket and handed it to me. I scrolled through the contacts until I found the number I needed.

"I thought you weren't suppose to use a cell phone." Seth stated.

"I'm not."

I went over to the pay phone and punched the number in. It only rang once until I heard the voice. The voice sounded scruffy and annoyed.

* * *

**School starts tomorrow, I'll be busy so I might be updating less! Sorry! Hope you liked this chapter! -Aims**


	18. Talking It Out

"Hello?" He said.

"Hi... this is Edward right?" I said.

"Yes, Layla." How he knew it was me just by hearing my voice and knowing me for about 2.3 seconds, I had no idea.

"I have a question for you."

"Ask away." He sounded tense.

"If you had the choice to spend eternity with the person you love or grow old and have kids with someone you know you know will love you, and that you will grow to love, which would you pick?"

The line was silent for a little while. "I already have eternity with the person I love. But time passes and all of your friends are dead except for you. Living forever is lonely. I didn't have a choice, it sounds like you do." He spoke slowly.

"You're not exactly giving me a straight answer here."

"It's not my decision to make." He said. "Why did you chose me to call?"

"Creatures like you don't live short lives." I hung up the phone.

I dialed again, but this time, to Percy.

"Hola!" It was Rachel, what was she still doing there? Didn't Conner want her back home?

"Give the phone to Percy please."

"You gonna tell him about the proposal?" Great, Rachel had seen the news.

"Sure, just give him the phone."

There was a pause, and then, "Layla, are you coming home today?"

"Thanks for the hello bro, and no, actually I need to stop at camp. I have to set things straight with Rex and get my head straight, I intend to take Seth and Jake with me there-"

"When did Seth and Jake get there?"

"Today, I think. They stalked me here, and now their my tag-alongs. Anyways, I have news."

"Shoot."

"Well... today, there was a council meeting, I'll explain why but when I get home but, Apollo, kind of... proposed." I braced myself.

"_What?_" Percy said, I could picture his green eyes wide in rage and shock.

"I didn't say anything!" He sighed in relief, "But I did say that I'd think about it."

"Layla..."

"Percy, you don't understand my situation. I don't want to say yes but..."

"You love him."

"I just need some time, I hope to be back by Sunday, remember to call into school and say I'm sick of something stupid like that."

"Okay."

"Bye, Percy, don't worry too much." I said.

"Just make the right decision."

"I'll try."

* * *

"Where are we going again?" Seth asked in the passenger's seat of a rental car.

We were on Long Island, heading to camp, but Seth barely knew about camp. I also didn't know how Chiron would react to them, he would know what they are.

"I am taking you to the place I've spent the last four years of my life." I said. "We're almost there."

We had past all the super rich neighborhoods on the island, now it was just farm fields and coast. I hadn't told Seth about the proposal, it wasn't the right time. But I had to tell him, before Rex did, or anybody else for that matter. At camp, I wouldn't be at home anymore like I always am, people would snicker and make rude comments. Friends wouldn't acknowledge me anymore. I would be shunned and shamed upon. _The girl that fell for the trick._

I turned a corner and halted the car. About a mile away was Half-Blood Hill. But this mile was also the most dangerous stretch of land for a demigod. Monsters hid out in the forest to the right, ready to reach out and destroy the weak.

"Watch out guys, if you see anything suspicious, tell me. Be ready." I said.

"What are you ta-"

I slammed on the gas, the car lurched forward. The speedometer was going from 20...60...80...100. Trees rustled along the road, the shadows moved. Two hellhounds jumped out of the woods. Usually I would stop at the bottom of the hill, but I sped right up to it.

"When I stop the car, follow me, you're going to have to wait until I let you through though."

At the speed we were going, the monsters were way behind us, but once I would stop, they would be next to us in seconds. Thalia's tree was getting closer and closer. I stepped on the brakes a few feat from the boarder. I ran out of the car and over the boarder.

"I, Layla Brice, allow Seth Clearwater and Jacob Black into Camp Half-Blood!" I said as quick as could, the hellhounds were just yards away, but they were fast. "RUN!"

They dived to me, Jake knocked me over and landed on to of me, I quickly scooted out from under him. Awkward. The hellhounds growled and lashed out at the magical protection of the camp. The guard dragon awoke from his sleep and warded them off. But we weren't done then, once I stood up, I noticed the large amount of Ares camper's surrounded us, swords and bows pointed at Seth and Jake.

"Welcome to my world boys."

* * *

After I explained to the Ares kids that they were fine, they let up, but instead I just got an angry Chiron in my face and a couple of extremely confused werewolves. Seth and Jake looked up at the centaur like he was the coolest, most intimidating thing they had ever seen. I had to agree, and I would never want to be in Chiron's path of rage. But there I was, in the middle of his yellow brick road.

"You should have never brought them here." He yelled, right in front of the guys.

"What was I suppose to do? They followed me to New York, Seth is my boyfriend, I can't leave him in the city!"

"They are not apart of this world, they should not be here."

"So it was okay for Percy to bring _Tyson_ here, but _I_ can't even bring my boyfriend here?"

"Tyson is your half brother, an easy exception."

"They won't hurt anyone, they can sleep behind my cabin. I'm only here for a couple days. They'll be gone before you know it."

Chiron looked at the guys and then back at me. "Two days, or I'll kick them out myself."

He turned and ran off, he probably had a lesson to teach. I turned to Jake and Seth, and tried to smile.

"What's with him?" Jake said.

"Well, let's just say that I'm breaking all of the rules now." I said. "Anyways that was Chiron, the camp director, and this, is Camp Half-Blood. People like me come here."

"Like you as in... _oh_." Seth said, finally getting it.

"Come on, I'll take you on a tour."

I showed them the Big House, the strawberry field, the armory, forges, amphitheater, arena, lake, woods, and then my cabin. The smell of salt hit me like a rock, the place hadn't had anyone one in it since I left. Everything was just the way I left it. Percy's fountain trickled and illuminated the room without any lights on, and my waterfall's stream was weaker than it was before. Both of the beds weren't made, my armor hung next to my bed, and that stupid orange t-shirt sat on the floor. I only wore it on the first day of camp in the summer, all head counselors had to so the new kids knew who we were.

Everything was the same yet so much had changed. I got so many stares, which I had been expecting but it still hurt when people who you used to be friends with just months ago can't do anything but give you glares. I wanted to speak up and tell them to just go away but that would be the wrong move here, it would just get me into a fight, and then Seth would phase just trying to protect me, and then everything would be even worse.

"Home sweet home." I said.

"This is where you stay?" Jake said.

"For the last four years, just me, a couple times a year Percy and Annabeth come by to help out and tell their story, teach a lesson or two, but usually this whole place is mine."

"What's their story?"

"It's a long one, war hero's, invincible, offers of immortality, Percy changed the lives of demigods forever, no one left behind, Annabeth reconstructed Olympus after it was destroyed, they're kind of a big deal."

"A lot to live up to." Seth said.

"Yeah..."

"So what do you _do_ here?" Jake asked leaning against the wall.

"Train, eat, train, sleep, train some more."

"You did that for four years?" He asked.

"I'll probably be doing it again soon too, the disagreement between Zeus and my father is over, he might move us back here whenever he feels like it. I could go to sleep in Forks, wake up here. The Mist would cover it all up, no one would know who I even am. Or that I was ever there, even in a small town."

"So you could just... disappear and no would ever know?" Seth asked a bit desperately.

"Unfortunately yes..."

"Why didn't you tell me?" He was starting to get a little angry.

"The matter just settled, I thought I would be stuck there only until winter break."

"Stuck? So now you were _stuck_ in Forks, _stuck_ with me?"

"Seth," I said, my voice rising, "I didn't exactly plan on a werewolf imprinting on me and confessing he's madly in love with me and then end up in the middle of a controversy, and right now I _am_ stuck. So yeah. Stuck is the right word."

"I see how it is now-"

"Seth," Jake said putting a hand on his shoulder, "Calm down man."

Something slapped the cement floor of my cabin. I looked over by the entrance where a face down magazine laid, it hadn't been there when we walked in. Jake went over and picked up, he looked at me. Seth walked over and took it from his hands. His eyes widened, I already had a hunch about what it said. Seth held it up for me to see. APOLLO PROPOSES! The headline of Olympus Weekly shouted at me. The cover picture was of him on one knee with the ring in his hand and me with an 'Uhhh...?' look on my face. I closed my eyes for a few seconds.

"When were you going to tell me?" Seth asked.

"It just happened, I was going to tell you at the right time-"

He started flipping through the pages and reciting the article, " 'Apollo confesses his love for Layla Brice, the sixteen year old daughter of Poseidon who was involved in the recent Olympic Council meetings regarding the four other demigods who allegedly had intimate relationships with Apollo in past years. Layla said she needed time on the big decision, but this has us all wondering on Olympus if there is going to be a wedding or an immortality ceremony for Ms. Brice.' " Seth stopped and looked back at me. "There were four other girls and you still said that you would think about it? Seriously, how long were you going to wait to tell me?"

"Seth, I-"

"You know that you are the _hardest_ person to be imprinted on because I don't know if even you love me, or _like_ me, I always have this god guy to compete with and really, having a freaking god as competition isn't the easiest thing I've done. Can't you just decide? Tell me who you love so we can get this over with?"

"I can't."

"She can't because she doesn't love you." I looked over to the door, so did Jake and Seth, it was Rex. "Get over it bro. I had to."

Rex was 6 2'', blonde haired, blue eyes, totally buff, and looked a lot like his father. He was a big guy, towered over me, but was nothing compared to Seth and Jake. They could make even Hephaestus kids look small. But here he was, I had to admit that I had been thinking about him a lot, our friendship had been sacrificed, and now all we could do was look at the remains. He didn't look mad, just in a jerk mood.

"We need to talk Layla," He glanced at Seth. "But without the body guards."

I nodded and followed him out of my cabin, I gave Jake a look telling him to stay here and to make sure that Seth stayed with him. Rex was walking into the woods, not looking back. We walked further and further until we stopped were the creek enters the ocean. He turned to look at me. He didn't say anything but he walked a little towards me. He rose his hand and slapped me across the face. A sharp sting erupted off of the skin of my cheek. I cradled my face with my hands and looked up at him.

"I thought you wanted to talk." I said to him, my voice all choked up, on the verge of tears.

"Do you know how _frustrating_ it is to have _two_ of your best friends like your _dad_?" Rex asked, trying to keep his voice calm. I didn't know what to say, I just shook my head in response. "Trust me, it's worse than you can imagine, the betrayal..."

Rex's anger brought him real close, I could practically see the veins popping out of the top of his head as he leaned down to get in my face. "The desire to ask them _why?_"

"It was never suppose to end up like this!" I said desperately, "I didn't think that..."

"That what?"

"That I would feel this way about everything!" I shouted, "That I would have you, and Seth, and my father, and just about every other person in the world mad at me! This wasn't suppose to end up like this."

"How wasn't it suppose to end up like this? You made a deal with Apollo for gifts in exchange for sex. You set your self up Layla, you just won't admit it."

Maybe I had set myself up for disaster but I knew one thing was for sure, "Is that what the news is telling you? That I gave him sex? Well let me tell you I proudly have my virginity and that the deal was just me giving him someone to _talk_ to! So obviously it's _you_ who needs to get their facts straight."

"You still walked into a trap, any deal with a god doesn't end well."

"I was _twelve_, by the time Percy was twelve he had already returned Zeus's lightning bolt, what did I do? Fail."

"This isn't about Percy, this is about you!"

"Ugh!" I said in frustration, "I'm sorry okay? I'm sorry! I know it'll never be enough but _I'm sorry_. If you can't accept it then just leave me alone!"

"I _can't_"

"Well why not?"

"BECAUSE I LOVE YOU."

* * *

**Cliffy! I'll update as soon as I can!**


	19. Life is All Bubbles Under the Sea

**Sorry this took so late guys, I've been beyond busy with school and hockey is starting so I've just been too overwhelmed to write. I don't expect coughing out another chapter any time soon, expect it sometime late next month. Hope this chapter is satisfying, not as cliffy as recent ones but I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

The air was still, nothing moved, the color of the day seemed to drain away. I didn't know what to say. Rex looked at me desperately, waiting for a reaction. A laugh, a cry, a word, a run. Anything. Something.

I had it coming. I knew this wasn't going to end well, Rex and I always had feelings for each other but I didn't know that it was like this for him. I should have known, it was probably obvious to everybody but me. I knew that a part of me never wanted to admit that Rex had more than just a crush on me though, he was my best friend, if we had a relationship, and it ended badly, then who would I go to? Who would be my best friend? That's probably the worst part of being so close to the opposite sex, getting _too_ close is extremely dangerous.

Rex picked up my hand, I tried to pull it away but his grip tightened, "I love you, and you love my father."

His voice was so broken, I would never know the pain I was causing him. _I thought you loved Jewels..._ I thought to myself. They had always gotten caught sneaking off together and sometimes their moments in spin-the-bottle got a little _too_ heated. But maybe that was just apart of a bigger plan, to make me jealous perhaps.

"Rex... I love you too, I do," I said looking down at our hands, I covered my other one over his, my eyes started to water, "But as a brother, you are apart of my family. And right now, my family is more important to anyone else in the world. That will never change, I will need my family more than ever in these next few days. There was a time when I thought, I thought that I had real feelings for you, more than a crush, but you'll always be my best friend. And I _need_ my best friend."

I could see the pain pulsing through his blood and through every nerve in his body. I wanted so bad to love Rex the way he loved me, I wanted to love Seth in the uncontrollable way that he loved me, but I didn't, and in a way, the feeling that you know you're letting someone down, is almost as bad as getting told 'I don't love you'.

Seth was funny, loving, a good kisser, and just plain amazing, but he didn't make me melt, my heart didn't flutter when he walked into the room or gave me a hug, he didn't make me nervous. Seth imprinted on me, but it doesn't mean that I have to imprint back. In a weird way I felt like I was house hunting, Apollo was a mansion with everything I wanted, but the price tag was too expensive, it would take literally forever to pay it off. Seth was the suburb house with water damage, but I could afford it and all my future children could play with all the other kids, we could pack up and leave when ever we wanted and still be happy.

I hate house hunting, I thought to myself.

"Come on," I said slowly, "Lets go back, people are going to be wondering where we are."

I started to walk away but turned around when I didn't hear footsteps behind me.

"Just go." Rex said, "I want to be alone."

I shook my head and kept walking. I wanted to be alone too, but it seemed like I just couldn't get away from the constant drama that filled the atmosphere around me. At the same time though, I felt like that if I was alone, my own thoughts and guilt would slowly start to suffocate me. It was already starting to eat away at me. How could I do this to Rex? To Seth? I didn't know who I loved or who I liked, or who I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. It was obvious at the time that I was just too confused to have _any_ relationship at the moment, but that wasn't what was expected from me right then.

As I emerged from the woods two Aphrodite girls passed by me and snickered.

"Oh my gods," One of them said in a lowered voice just loud enough for me to hear and shooting me a look, "I'm _whore_-iffied."

The other girl snickered, and then both walked off. I could have said something snarky back to them, because I knew that one of them had been sneaking around with an Ares kid all summer but was too ashamed about it to tell anyone. I decided against it, I was already on Aphrodite's bad side, I didn't need her love crazed daughters out to get me too. I knew that her and Percy had their rough patches though too, but I didn't think that his "luck" with love would rub off on me so much. For some reason I had a feeling that Jewels, my friend who is the daughter of Aphrodite didn't want anything to do with me either.

As I walked back to my cabin I found that Seth and Jake were gone. My first reaction was to panic, Chiron would kill me if they were somewhere they weren't suppose to be, but then I calmed down, hoping someone didn't piss them off.

The day was coming to a close, dinner time came around and still no sign of Jake and Seth, I hoped they were staying out of trouble. By the time I retreated to my cabin to go to sleep, I realized that I wasn't going to get any. My mind was running in a thousand different places and sleep wasn't one of them.

* * *

There was no time for excuses anymore, it was crunch time. I needed to make a decision. Break Rex and Seth's heart and marry Apollo, live for ever with the god I love; dump Seth so I can be with my best friend; or turn down Apollo _and_ his son to be with Seth. Either way, the obvious fact was, someone was going to get hurt. Including me. Letting any of them go would be incredibly hard. If I went with Rex, I would probably never see Seth again, I mean he lives on the other side of the country. I could probably visit Apollo on Olympus but it's not like he would actually want to see me. Same with Seth, it would be tantalizing for him if I acted like nothing ever happened. And if I didn't choose Rex? I'll probably never get my best friend back.

I knew there would be a lot of second guessing on my part once I made my decision, many nights would be spent sleepless. It was something I would have to prepare myself for. Though I had no idea who to choose, what to say, or how to say it. I could sense my choice rising in my chest getting ready to break free, but I just wasn't sure yet. First I needed some answers, and I knew exactly where to get them.

Jumpy was a pretty accurate tern for when I snuck out of my cabin that night. Somehow I managed to slip past Seth and Jake whispering around a small campfire behind my cabin, they finally came back. I dodged the harpies monitoring the camp, making sure that no one snuck out the way I was doing right then.

When my toes touched the cool sand and I felt the brisk wind coming off of the waves of the Atlantic, I felt completely at home. Being away from the ocean for a few weeks was maybe the worst form of punishment out there for a child of Poseidon like me. And Yet, though the matter had been settled on Olympus, my father was still holding a huge grudge against me for falling for Apollo. I knew that I was still banned from the ocean, but I dipped my feet in anyways.

Not to piss him off, but for the sake of answers. I was definitely expecting the rogue wave that engulfed my entire body into it, dragging me deeper and farther into the sea to my father's palace. The water was cold but I remained dry, I could still breath too, these were good signs that he wanted to talk. Possible peacefully for once too.

After a little while I could see the glow of the lights coming off of the underwater city. I had been there only once in my life, the second year I was at camp, I was only 13. Percy was with me too, we were invited down for a family feast, some that had never, and would never, happen again. I met Triton who was extremely greedy and power hungry, always reminding us that _he_ was the heir to the throne. Poseidon kept looking at Percy as if he'd rather have _him_ take over once he faded away.

I remember the entire time I was worrying about if my father knew about Apollo and I (our relationship was fresh and I was completely paranoid that someone would find out) and that it was completely awkward. Amphridite kept glaring at us over her over-sized lobster, we were the proof of her husbands broken vows. Did I want to be bitter like that one day?

As I got closer, the weight on my chest that was pulling me down got lighter and lighter until I was allowed to swim on my own. I glided past graves from the Titan War and through the homes of sea creatures, all the way up the the glowing palace. Construction was still underway after the city's destruction years ago. Mermaids armed with tridents and in full body armor guarded the palace grounds. Their eyes glowed bright green as they glared at me swimming past them.

Poseidon's palace had no doors, clean water needed to be constantly flowing through in order for the water to remain fresh, but that just meant security was even stronger than on Olympus. As I swam into the palace, I looked up to see a giant dome decorated with abalone shells and pearls the size of basketballs. It would be any girls dream to live here like a princess, but as I swerved through through hallways leading to my father's throne room, I couldn't help but to think it would be my worst nightmare. My father's throne room was wide open, there was a roof boot there were no all. Since the palace was on a high point of the city, you could see everything that surrounded it. Right now the city was resting, but tomorrow cyclops forges would come back alive, construction would take another step closer to being finished, and everything would be the way it has for centuries.

Poseidon sat in his simple throne that was just a deep sea fishing seat, exactly like the one on Olympus, his trident at his side. He was looking down at the moving mosaic of the city at his feet. He scratched his black beard. His expression was sad, like he had failed at something that he was suppose to accomplish. He looked at me and motioned for me to come closer. No "hello", it was that like of stuff that got under my skin, but I came here for a reason and it wasn't for an argument.

"I knew this would happened." Poseidon said, ashamed. "I saw the look in Aphrodite's eyes five years ago when we challenged her opinion."

I stood, speechless, not knowing what to say.

"It's why I moved you to Forks. I about Seth's connection to since before you were born. I thought that you would surely fall in love him. The lack of sun there was a plus, it should have kept Apollo at bay. What I didn't know was that I was years too late to protect you from him."

It all clicked. "That's why you Zeus were fighting, wasn't it? You knew about the other girls over the years and knew I would be next. You were trying to get him to leave me alone."

He nodded, "And I was greatly unsuccessful. Zeus laughed at me from Olympus as I sent storms and earthquakes. He made sure that we were _both_ humiliated Layla as soon as he got the chance."

"The pictures..."

We sat (or floated?) in silence, me taking in the set up provided by Zeus, and him rewinding his mistakes. It stuck me that my father wasn't angry at the moment, well he was angry at the fact that he had been fooled, but he wasn't angry with me. For now at least. This would probably be the best time to say...

"I'm sorry," I said, looking at the moving mosaic. "I'm sorry that I found every possible way to f things up between us and just in general. It's my fault that you and I are in this situation. I was just... stupid, I didn't know what I was doing when I made the deal with Apollo, you have to understand that."

"You are young, at 16 you are allowed to make mistakes Layla. But for someone who is 2,000 years old, I should have known better. I should have reasoned with you whenever we fought. I should have asked you for the whole story when I came to Forks instead of threatening you. I should have done a lot of things, and no I am paying the consequences. I have been a terrible father to you, as a result you hate me."

"I don't hate you." Was he actually apologizing back?

"Well, you don't like me." No, I did not.

I looked out at the sleeping city. It was no New York but Percy said it used to resemble Olympus.

"I don't like you because the only version of Poseidon I have ever known was the angry one. He may not know it but Percy got the better side of you."

"That is a fair statement." I scoffed in my head, nothing was _fair_ anymore, but I _was_ right though.

I yawned, it was 2 o'clock in the morning when I left camp and sometimes time goes a little bit faster down here than on land.

"You should head home." Poseidon said to me, "I am glad we had this talk. But just know, who ever you choose, I won't argue with your decision. Though I prefer it not be Apollo... if he makes you happy..."

He trailed and collected his thoughts again. "I hope we get along better in the future Layla, I really do."

I nodded and turned, but just as I was about to leave the room I remembered something.

"Dad?" He looked up at me from the mosaic, "What did Aphrodite mean yesterday when she said 'like mother like daughter'?"

His face saddened, "When your mother and I met, she was already in a relationship, even when she was pregnant with you."

"Oh." I said taken aback, "Okay bye."

I rushed out of there, that was an awkward finish, my mom had cheated on her boyfriend with my dad. Wow. We _are_ alike. As I weaved through the halls I realized what I had to today, and I started to slow down, dreading my assent back to camp. I was almost out of the palace when Triton passed me, double tail and all, ugly as ever.

"Whore." He coughed.

I stopped, anger rising in my chest, this was where the Poseidon part of me comes in. "_What_ did you just call me?"

"I think you already know."

"Triton, do you by any chance have a girlfriend?" I asked with fake interest.

He looked at me confused. "Not at the moment."

"Do you want to know why you don't have a girlfriend? It's because you're a dick and since your a _mermaid_ you don't even _have_ a dick. Not to mention that your double tail makes you look deformed, you shouldn't take any pride in it at all. So next time you go around calling me a whore, make sure you didn't wish that you could actually get some. Good bye Triton."

With that I turned and swam away, not waiting for his reaction. I was ready to get out of here, my job here was done.


	20. Gone

When I got back to the shore at camp, it was still dark. I used my not-so-stealthy skills as I sprinted back to my cabin. It wasn't the harpies I was worried about; it was if Seth and Jake were awake to catch me sneaking back in. But I found them finally asleep, they were huddled in their sleeping bags that I had borrowed for them. The small fire that they had built was now just glowing embers.

I decided I should get some shut eye so I didn't get cranky, because after what I was planning to do, nothing would be alright. Tensions would rise and relationships would be tested. Hopefully no one would be physically hurt, but at the end of the day, everyone would be hurt in some kind of way.

Two hours later, after a dreamless sleep, I was awake again. The sun was rising. Perfect, I thought, or not perfect once I thought about it more. I changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, an awkward thought crossed my mind, I went down to my father's _palace_ in pajamas. Classy. I left my cabin without worries of anyone seeing me, the early risers were probably already getting coffee in the Big House or running on the track. I went down to the beach again, but this time I wouldn't be there for a swim.

I sat down in the sand dunes and gazed at the beautiful sunrise over the ocean. Colors of red and fiery orange shot in all different directions reflecting off of the water, it was all coming from one thing, or god.

"Apollo," I said to the sun, "It's time."

There was no magic flash, but when someone tapped me on the shoulder, I knew it was him. I looked around me to see his bright smile and newly cut blonde hair, his eyes we the color of turquoise waters today. My breath caught, he was so beautiful. He embraced me into a hug, his body warm and cozy against my jittery, nervous one. He sat next to me but looked at the sand, his smile was gone. Apollo knew what was coming, he probably had known for months, but maybe all this was still worth it to him. It was a chance to change the future. It hit me to think about how much I was going to give up, and I didn't want to do it anymore.

"It kills me," I started, "_Kills_ me, to say this…"

"Then don't," Apollo said, taking my hand, "Come with me, we can run away, no one will bother us, or judge us."

"Don't be ridiculous, you're an Olympian, you can't be away for more than a few months before it starts uproar. Apollo, I am so in love with you, more than anyone else, but I can't marry you. I can't be immortal like you, living forever is too much, I'd feel like I'd be signing a contract instead of knowing I'd be with you. I'm only 16, I am too young to be getting married and frozen in time. It's something I am not, and will never be ready for."

"You don't know what you're saying." He said, shaking his head.

"Yes, I do-" He lurched for me and smashed his lips against mine. I jerked back. "Stop trying to change my mind."

"I don't think you understand, I have told you this before, _nothing is over until I say it is__._"

His voice had changed, it was seething, I had only seen him like this a few times. Usually when he got this angry it was because the other gods had done something to make him angry, or Artemis was getting on his nerves. Apollo wasn't the angry kind of guy, he was always pretty chill and funny. But lately he had become more serious. Maybe it was because he couldn't change the future.

"This is the way it's going to be, I don't like it and neither do you, but I can't live like that." Don't cry, don't cry, I begged myself to stay strong.

He smiled a sinister smile, "Oh but you see, it's not really your choice anymore."

He started to glow and I closed my eyes. _Don't do it Apollo_, I thought. I turned to run but he grabbed my and pulled me into a hug. Only it wasn't a hug, he was retraining me from getting away. Suddenly we weren't on the beach anymore, we were thousands of miles in the sky, in a red sports car. I looked down over the passenger's seat door, we were somewhere over the eastern Americas. Panic set in, I had been in the sun chariot before, but never been kidnapped in it.

"Apollo," I said looking down, my hair whipping in the wind, "Bring me back _now_."

"Haven't you figured it out Layla? There _is_ no going back. There is no choice for you."

**Jacob's POV:**

Shit happens, I understand that, but sometimes it is entirely unnecessary. Waking up and figuring out that Layla was missing was a completely unnecessary moment of shittiness. I mean does this girl need to be causing unwanted drama _every_ day? Let's be honest at this point I have gone way past annoyed. First, she smells weird, Seth imprints on her, we attack her house, we figure out she half Greek, she figures out that Seth is a wolf and flips out, we all make up, she cheats on Seth, she comes to New York and we of course follow, she fails to end her relationship with Apollo, takes us here where we are clearly unwanted, Seth flips out because Layla says she's thinking about marrying Apollo, her jerk of a friend Rex shows up, and now she's just _gone_.

We searched high and low over the confusing camp grounds, asking if anyone had seen her. We got a little desperate, Seth started to freak out. He started asking the 'what if' again. I had to punch him in the face to get him to shut up.

"Seth," I said to him, "We'll find her, _someone_ has to know where she is. Now toughen up man."

"I don't like the idea of it, but I think we have to find Rex, he might know." He said back to me.

"Maybe, but do you really think that he want to talk to us? And when I say us I mean you."

"If he cares about Layla the way I think he does then he will be just as worried at I am."

He had a point, but the way Rex acted yesterday gave me a feeling he still wouldn't want to talk to us. Rex had an edge to him, the kind of guy that was angry at the world and had all the right reasons why. He was the male version of Layla. He obviously had a huge thing for Layla as well, which is expected when two people of opposite sexes are best friends.

"So where do you think he is?" Seth asked.

I scratched my head and looked around, the camp was _huge_, he could be anywhere. If people didn't give us such weird looks I couldn't mind asking around for him. But the kids here knew we were outsiders, that we didn't belong here. Layla told us that this was the only place that her kind was safe. I couldn't blame them for not wanting us here. A while ago (pre-Nessa) I would have freaked out if vamps showed up on the reservation, just like those kids did the second we escaped those freaky dogs. Right now Seth and I were the intruders, and judging by the way we were welcomed here, a lot of the kids here wouldn't mind getting their hands on us if they had the chance.

"We should split up," Seth suggested, "We'll be less of a threat in their eyes if we're alone. Besides, if I find him, I want to have a little chat with him."

"I think your right I'm pretty sure Rex won't find you very intimidating, I mean you have such a baby face-"

"Shut up Jake." He said defensively.

"I'm kidding, but don't do anything to piss them off, it took weeks for Sam's shoulder to heal after Layla stabbed him." I warned him.

"I'll try, meet me at Layla's cabin in a half an hour."

I nodded and headed over to a big stadium looking building while Seth went in the opposite direction. When I opened the door I saw two different tracks. One track was made completely of sand, kids were in chariots being pulled by horses with wings. The other track was on the inside of the sand track, it was for running. People were racing the 100 meter straight away or running laps. But no one looked like Rex, I scanned the stands but he wasn't there either.

I exited the track building and saw a tree covered in signs in the shape of arrows pointing to the destination written on it. The arrows pointed to pretty much everywhere in the camp, the Big House, lake, cabins, archery range, forge (why is there a forge in a camp?) Half-Blood Hill, arena, lava wall, creek, monster infested forest, beach. Everywhere. If Rex is the son of Apollo, and Apollo is the god of archery, then my best chance was to find him at the archery range. The only problem was that the arrow pointed to the left, but that where any sense of direction ended.

But I went left anyways and luckily saw some kids with quivers on their backs and bows slung around their shoulders. I followed them to an open field, like a pasture just not as big. People were running around in one section of the field shooting at each other like crazy people. Once someone was shot other kids would run out, scoop the injured onto a stretcher and carried them away. Another section that regular big targets painted onto hay bales that little kids were shooting at. That horse man looked like he was teaching them. The last section had big and small targets that moved around, that's where I spotted Rex.

He was talking to a girl with blonde hair. She was laughing at something he had said when out of nowhere he loaded his bow and hit the smallest, fastest moving target right on the bulls-eye in the matter of seconds. The girl said something and he shrugged like it was nothing. _Show off_, I though. The girl got closer to him and just as they looked like they were about to kiss, he spotted me too. The blonde turned to see what he was looking at, moment ruined. I recognized her from one of the pictures in Layla's room. What was her name, Jewels?

"I'll see you later Rex." She said flirtatiously as I approached him.

"You sure move on fast." I said to him.

"What do you want?"

"Just to know if you have seen Layla."

"No. Why?"

"She's missing," His expression softened a little but then hardened again, "Seth and I looked everywhere, she never came out of her cabin this morning."

"Did you try looking _in_ the cabin?"

"Of course we did, now do you, or you not know where she is?" I said getting frustrated.

Rex was a big guy, but I was bigger and a wolf. I took a step forward and looked down on him. He stepped forward as well, trying to stare me down. I heard hoofs from behind me, the horse man came between us, sensing the tension.

"Is everything alright?" He said, not really worried, just not interested in a fight between us.

"Everything is just _dandy_ Chiron." Rex said, still giving me a hard, grudgingly look.

I tore my gaze away from Rex and to the horse man, or Chiron. "Layla is missing, Seth and I have looked everywhere for her, but she's gone."

"Did you look at the beach?" Rex asked.

"Yeah, that's the first place we looked, she wasn't there."

"Check again, she might have gone for a swim."

"But Poseidon banned her from the ocean after... you know..." Awkward.

"Do you honestly think Layla would listen to her father?"

"Well no but-"

"_Check again_"

"I think you should _both_ check again." Chiron said, incredibly annoyed.

Rex shot an icy look at him for suggestion us to work together, if just taking a short walk up to the beach counted as working together. Rex was coming off as a jerk, I was starting to question how Layla could have ever been friends with this guy. I know he's the male version of her but she wasn't always this annoying was she? Okay, never mind, they're _exactly_ the same.

"I think he's right," I started, "If we find her then she's not going to want to talk to me, she'll want to talk to her best friend. I'm just the tag along."

Rex turned back to me, I could have honestly cared less if he came with me, Layla and I are friends, she would actually talk to me more easily than lover boy here judging from the tension between them since their 'talk'.

"Don't you know," Rex said, "Layla wants nothing to do with me anymore. She'd rather go make out with my dad."

For a second I forgot that Apollo was his dad, as in his dad was having an affair with his best friend. I would be bitter too, probably bitching out at everyone, but that comment crossed the line for me somehow. Seth was still one of my best friends, and like a kid brother, and Layla and him were still together.

"Hey, lay off her okay? She has a boyfriend you know." Rex looked like he was about to tackle me but was trying his hardest not to.

"Whatever lets go."

He walked off and I followed, he set a fast pace as we headed towards the beach, he was so pissed over absolutely nothing that I wanted to laugh about it. He guy just seriously needed to get over it and move on. That sounds easier said than done but still, he had his chance to be with Layla and could have prevented this whole mess years ago. It only took something as painful as the current situation to clear his mind of what's really important: her.

As we arrived to the beach, I saw Rex, who was only a few feet away looking around in the sand, like he had lost something, unit he stopped dead in his tracks.

"What are you looking at?" I said before I caught up to him.

"She's gone."

"What do you mean?" I asked as I approached.

He pointed to the sand, it was swirled around, perfectly flat, like in a zen garden. "He was here, they both were, but they're gone."

I wanted to believe that "they" was Seth and Layla, but I knew better than to think that it someone other than Apollo. "How do you know she's gone just because of some stupid sand?"

"Because when gods travel, they don't just walk around or take a plane, they can just teleport themselves where ever they want. It leaves marks if they're in a place where the ground or soil can be manipulated, like sand." Rex explained.

"Where do you think they are now?"

He looked out towards the ocean, it was unusually calm after the months of storms, Rex looked like he was waiting for it to churn viciously like it had been in the past,

"Where else would a god get married? Olympus of course." Rex answered, "Better find your friend, it's time for you two to go home."

* * *

**Um, hey guys, it's been a while. Sorry about that... yeah, review! Next Chapter out in the near future! Happy Holiday's, next chapter will be published NEXT YEAR! -Aims **


	21. Heartless

**Layla's POV:**

"Why did you take me here?" I demanded as we materialized into the empty throne room on Olympus.

"Layla, calm down hun." Apollo said, leaning down, grabbing me by the shoulder and looking into my eyes. "This is what you want, trust me,you want to be with me, you always have. I have seen it. You admitted it that you're in love with me, I don't understand why all of a sudden you have changed your mind."

His colbolt blue eyes bore onto mine, he was trying to manipulate me. He wanted me to give in, to just stop fussing around and say 'I do' already. And for me to get out of here, out of this wedding, I would have to do exactly that.

I slowly smiled a big smile, "I think I need to go dress shopping."

Apollo grinned back, knowing he had conquered me, "Aphrodite will take you right away while I make some... arrangements."

Next to us there was a bright flash, "I heard my name?" Aphrodite was dressed in heels too high and a gold sequence mini dress.

"Layla needs a dress, and shoes to match her new ring." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box. Inside was a moderate sized diamond on a silver band, he knew I didn't like flashy things, the ring was perfect. His hand shook as he slipped it onto my left ring finger. He looked back into my eyes and smiled again.

Not the manipulative kind, but the real kind, the kind that reminded me why I had loved him in the first place. Or love him. I didn't even know anymore.

"Fifth Avenue is calling!" Aphrodite squealed. "Maybe we'll hit up Paris too!"

She grabbed my wrist and before Apollo could kiss me goodbye we were in a dress shop, and I was already looking into a mirror and in a puffy white dress that was absolutely hideous. I shook my head wildly, Aphrodite pouted. But snapped her fingers and another dress appeared on my body.

"Okay, I could get used to shopping like this." There was no hassle of taking clothes on and off, the gods had it easy.

"I know right?" Aphrodite agreed, "But this dress is not doing you any favors."

I frowned, I kind of liked it, the halter made tamed the intricate bead work at the bottom.

"With you slim body, small shoulders, and big chest, you're definitely going strapless."

Before I could protest I was already in a strapless dress that hugged my body and was lined with pearls and diamonds across my chest, they faded out down the dress. She was right. Something about this dress was just _me_. I tilted my head and turned so I could see the back in the mirror, I tried to find something wrong with it.

I walked over to the chair next to her and slumped into into it, before my butt hit the cushion I was changed back into my regular clothes.

"Let's not ruin the dress sweety." She said with urgency.

I looked at her, "What am I doing? Why am I shopping for a dress so I can get married to someone that I don't even want to marry?"

Aphrodite looked away, "Because that's the way it goes." She slowly.

"But I'm just sixteen."

The goddess was silent was silent for a long time, "Which is why you're going to walk out of here."

"Wait-what?"

"Let me tell you a little secret Layla," Aphrodite started, "They call me heartless, my daughters, my sons, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, my brothers, my sisters, my peers, my enemies, my lovers, my _husband_. I'm heartless to them. I've spent two _thousand_ years in a loveless marriage, cheating on Hephaestus with someone I still don't truly love. It's possible that the goddess of love has never _truly_ fallen in love. It's easy to make someone fall for you, but it's hard to fall for them too though. Apollo has been the same way for years, until he met you. I've never sensed his love so strong for someone before. But you have to go, you have leave now."

"But this is-"

"Uncharacteristicly nice of me?"

"Well... yeah."

"No one deserves to end up like me Layla, I may be heartless but I'm not not evil."

"But-"

"Go before I change my mind." She was back to her old self.

"Um, thanks."

I walked towards the door, "But one more thing."

I was waiting for the catch. Aphrodite stood up and narrowed her eyes at me.

"I can't let you leave without cursing you just a tiny bit." An invisible force lifted up my left hand, the ring floated off of my hand without her touching it and a silver necklace chain appeared. "You will forever wear this ring around your neck, the chain will never unclasp, it will never slip over your head, and no saw or machine can ever break it apart, you will wear it in your coffin at your funeral. It will tell all future lovers that you were once in love with someone else, and may never get over him. _And_," The dress that I liked so much appeared, two pearls unraveled themselves off the dress and slipped onto the chain, one on each side of the ring. "These pearls will represent Seth, and Rex. So you will always remember the pain you are putting all three men though."

The necklace floated onto me, the pearls and diamond weighed down my neck, it seemed to weight a hundred pounds. My burden to carry forever.

"Now you can go, there's a car for you to drive out of here just outside of the shop. I'll keep Apollo distracted. I have a plan for the wedding, all you have to do is drive." She flashed a sinister smile.

"Thank you." I said, wanting to give her a hug, but I didn't have the guts, and I just wanted to get out of there.

I pushed through a plush door and into the main dress shop where mannequins wore $5,000 dresses, the woman sitting behind the front desk shot a botox filled grin at me. I exited the shop and was greeted by a heavy snow fall, taxi drivers drove slower than usual and huge snow plows raced up and down the crammed New York City streets. I spotted the car immediately, the license plate said 'LOVE' on it with the 'O' and a heart. It was a small Chevy car, but the keys were in the ignition, and I just wanted to get to the nearest train station. As I warmed up the car I wondered if anyone was looking for me, if anyone noticed I was gone. What time was it? 1 o'clock?

I pushed the thought aside and pulled out of my parking spot, launched into a maze of streets that were unfamiliar to me. Brooklyn was more of my territory, that's where I grew up until I was twelve, New York City was foreign to me, I never came here much because my mother was scared that I would run into my father there, or more afraid that she would see him and not be able to control herself.

Traffic wasn't horrendous, like I thought it was going to be, we might not have been on a crowded part of the city. As I was stuck at a red light played with the necklace between my fingers. My lucky day. Well, I guess I shouldn't be too sarcastic about that because Aphrodite was the one who set me "free". I felt bad for her, what she said was true, she was the popular girl that absolutely nobody liked, but they couldn't resist her either. The Regina George of the gods, minus the broken back. She was forced into marrying Hephaestus the same way Apollo was forcing me to marry him. Everyone hated her because she didn't love her husband, but she never chose him, people would probably look at me the same way when I finally cracked after how many centuries of immortality. She saved me.

The light turned green and I started forward. From the corner of my eye I could see the headlights of another truck through the snowy haze but I didn't think anything of it. My mistake. In seconds the car I was in was being tossed uncontrollably through the air. Time slowed, the necklace floated in front of my eyes as I screamed as if Seth, Apollo, and Rex were the last things I would ever see.

There was a sickening crunch-

**Jacob's POV:**

"You're saying that she left me for someone who will never treat her the way _I_ can?" Seth said, seething.

He was furious, but I was too. I didn't think Layla would actually choose to marry Apollo. But now Seth had lost his reason for existing and I knew he wouldn't stop until he got her back. Which wouldn't be easy, there was no way for us to get to Olympus and stop the wedding. The farthest we could get was the Empire State Building, but not even close to Olympus.

"Seth," I started, he was about to change, but he couldn't do it in the camp. "I know it's a lot but you really need to camp down, at least until we get out of here."

If he phased in the camp, we would be in big trouble and there would be practically no way to get him out of here with out any of these kids getting to us first. For some reason I got the feeling that they had faced way worse than giant wolves, not that we couldn't take them, but their weapons make it hard for us heal quickly, we couldn't risk a major wound. That was why we were already half way up the humongous hill that we crashed through the day before. The guards at the top of the hill were already looking sternly at us.

When we reached the summit I reached into my pocket and pulled out two gold coins that Layla had given us to bribe any of the campers off. I flipped them to the two guards and they nodded to us and returned to searching the hills for any threats.

"Come on man." I said, pulling Seth across the boarder.

"Why her? Why did I have to imprint on someone like her? Someone that doesn't even have the decency to say good bye or even tell me that she's in love with a _god_ for the love of all things holy." Seth ranted, starting to shake as we got farther down the hill. "And that... two thousand year old... pedophile just always knows _exactly_ what to say to make her cozy up to him when ever he needed it. It was all a set up! _And_ _she still left me for him!_"

He burst into the air and phased. I sighed and phased too, making sure I picked up my back pack that had all of our cash and clothes inside of it. I ran after him, but there was no stopping him.

_Where are you going?_

_Home. Away from here._ Seth thought.

_No, we are _not _going home Seth, you're going to fight for her_.

_She made her decision that first night she cheated on me with him. I never had a chance, there's no reason to convince her to stay with me if she doesn't even love me! It was a waste of time to come here. It was a waste of time just knowing her._

I tackled him from behind and pinned him beneath my paws. He didn't know what he was saying, he knew he couldn't live without, he was practically throwing himself off of a bridge. Seth couldn't be Seth anymore without Layla, she was apart of him whether he liked it or not.

_YOU ARE GOING TO FIGHT FOR HER DO YOU HEAR ME? We are going to New York City right NOW and we are going to get her back or else you will DESTROY yourself!_

_Don't tell me what to do Jake, I never said anything when you lost Bella to Edward, or when Nessa had to move to Alaska and you weren't invited. So you just leave me alone. I'm going home without her, just accept it._

_You will NOT go home and drink yourself away the way you _always_ do when things don't go your way. You leave and it's over forever, I'm not going to fight your battles for you Seth, not this time._

_I don't care what you say Jake, I'm going home._

_Then you don't love her._

That got his attention. He looked at me with hatred.

_What did you say?_

_If you leave, then you don't love her, simple as that._

Seth shoved himself from out from under me and went for my neck, his teeth bit deeply through my fur and sliced through my skin. I didn't fight back, he needed to let it out, I had him right where I wanted him anyway. For the first time in the history of my existence, Seth had me pinned, something that I wouldn't have the heart to tell him that I let him do.

_Don't _ever_ say that I don't love her, if I didn't love her we would still be stuck on the rez listening to Nessa and Leah whine. I love her with everything I have and she doesn't. Do you know how that feels?_

I glared at him, _Yeah, actually, I do._

He shook his head and unpinned me, in the matter of seconds, he took off.

_Where are you going now?_

_New York City, asshole._

I smiled in my mind, my plan came through. He's just so easy to manipulate.

About an hour later, we were in the middle of the city (in human form) lost with no knowledge of where we were or how to get to where we wanted. All I knew is that we were on 5th Avenue with a bunch of she-she stores that looked extremely over priced and it was snowing terribly. People bundled in their parkas, braving the winter wind and snow looked at Seth and I like we were crazy since we were just in sweatshirts and jeans.

Traffic was backed up, horns honked and people shouted at others through the window. There was a street light up ahead that seemed like the epicenter of all the traffic madness. Police were directing traffic and I as we got closer we understood why. An SUV's front end was bent into another car (that was a complete pancake) that had been rammed into one of those huge snow plows.

Seth stopped dead in his tracks. "Do you smell that?" He asked.

I sniffed the air, my nostrils erupted with a familiar scent that seemed too strong, "Layla."

Seth walked a little faster.

"She could just be in traffic." I said looking through the windows of random cars blocked in the mess.

"No, shes-" He stopped talking, I immediately saw why.

Rescue workers were pulling out the bloodied, broken body of Layla Brice.

* * *

**I told you this one would be out realitively soon! Next chapter might take a little longer depending on how things go, hope you enjoyed it! -Aims**


	22. The Necklace

**Layla's POV:**

For a long time, all I could see was blackness, but then things got lighter and everything was a white version of the world. I was in the throne room on Olympus, the walls were white, the thrones were plain and white, they all looked the same. It reminded me of what my room back in Forks looked like. White and plain, the exact opposite of Olympus. I was in the middle of the room, where the hearth should have been.

Then Nico appeared from behind a throne. He looked at me wearily as if he pitied me greatly. I didn't know why he was here, I wasn't exactly fond of him. He had gotten me in trouble countless times and really creeped me out. Percy said he was just misunderstood, but they were tight, Nico was like his little brother. Nico and I never really got along, he always looked at me weird and had a pained look in his eyes that never went away. He looked extremely out of place in his black leather motorcycle jacket, dark jeans, and snakeskin cowboy boots. He was annoyingly good looking, when I first met him I was disappointed that we were related.

"Where am I?" I asked, my voice echoing off the walls.

"I'm not really sure." He said taking a good look at the throne room, "Some people call it Limbo, others call it the In-Between. It's where people go when they're on the cusp of death, barely alive."

The cusp of death. Everything came flooding back to me, the sun chariot, the dress, the necklace. The crash. I touched my hand to my neck, but there was no chain with a ring and pearls on it.

"Limbo doesn't count." Nico said as if reading my mind, "All curses momentarily broken in Limbo, but return if you decide to live they will come back. But since your curse ends at death, you'll never have to worry about it again if you choose to pass on."

"Are you telling me to die?" I asked my oddly good-looking cousin.

"No, I wouldn't want to see you die, but you must remember it is an option. Sometimes life isn't always the answer."

"So your saying that I have a choice?"

"Yes and no. Some people have to pass on because of the state of their body, others live because their body can eventually heal. But you're in a coma right now, with the machines helping to keep you alive, you have to wake up to live. But if you choose to pass, then you will have to wait until someone chooses to take you off the machine."

"So I _do_ have a choice."

Nico smiled. "Just remember what I said. Things will be different if you choose to live, but your mind might be more at peace if you choose to go to the Underworld. I'll be seeing you either way. Good luck little cousin, make the right choices."

He turned to leave, "Nico wait!"

He stopped and looked at me, "Tell Percy... tell him to come, I need him right now."

"I wish I could, but I'm just a figment of your imagination right now, I'm sure he'll turn up though, your his little sister, he loves you."

"Wait Nico! Don't go!" He started walking backwards.

"Just make the right choices Layla, make the right choices, that's all."

"But I don't know how, please come back!" His image was fading away.

"Just make the right choices."

He was gone, his voice still lingered though, _make the right choices_. If possible, things got brighter. What choices? Life or death? I shielded my eyes from the light but it went through my hand. Seth or Apollo? Rex or Seth? Apollo or Rex? I blinked, trying to get used to the brightness that was burning my vision. Immortality or be a mortal?

"I'm here." Someone said from a distance.

My eyes blinked rapidly as my pupils adjusted to the brightness of florescent lights. My vision slowly rightened its self, but my thinking was still fogged. My body felt like it weighted a million pounds, like I was sinking into the bed I was laying in. I suddenly aware of the multiple tubes and machines I was hooked up to and was immediately over whelmed by the amount of people around me. They were all trying to talk to me, but they all seemed so far away, as if they were yelling from a distance. One grasped my hand, instinctively I snatched it away even through my actions were sluggish.

Another person entered the room and played with the machines next to my bed. They leaned over my face and flashed a light in my eyes. Why did every thing have to be so bright? The person said something to the people around me and I felt the mood in the room shift.

I wished I could see their faces and hear their voices but everything was like looking into a fogged mirror. For a moment things slowed down, the people around me stopped talking in mid sentence, frozen in place. Except for one figure that wasn't next to me a couple of seconds ago. I felt that person pick up my right hand and wrap it in theirs. Something ran through me, my head stopped pounding and my vision cleared up, my hearing became clear and a giant weight was lifted off of my shoulders.

I could now see that I was in a hospital room and there were many familiar faces standing frozen in time around me. Percy and Annabeth looked excited yet fearful to my left, Seth was sleeping in a chair in the back of the room near to door, Rachel sat with her legs crossed next to him. When I looked to see who was holding my hand my skin began to crawl and I wanted to be as far away from that room as possible.

Though I didn't want to look Apollo in the eye, I could already see the heart broken look on his face. His big, bright blue eyes that I had fallen in love with years ago were tired and turned down like he hadn't slept in days. He was not how you would picture a god to look like, as if in those moments he was humanized.

I put my free hand over his and squeezed it tight. "I am so sorry, but I just can't..." I said in a shaky voice.

He held my gaze and straightened up. "Your scars will last a while, physically and mentally, but they'll heal nicely." He said going into doctor mode.

I slipped my hands away from his and he dragged himself out of the room, but I stopped him at the door, "You loved me right?"

Apollo turned his head. "I love you with everything I have, but after two thousand of life I still haven't figured out how to change fate."

I knew it would probably be the last time I would ever see him again, but I couldn't bring myself to stop him from leaving. It was my first choice, letting him go. I knew it was the right one. When Apollo disappeared from my view everything was launched back into motion. Annabeth finished her sentence, Seth snored on, Rachel kept looking out of place. And Percy practically jumping out of his smile.

This made me laugh a little, but even though Apollo fixed me a little, I could still tell I was weak.

"Who da man?" Percy said to Annabeth, "I woke her up! Who _da man_!"

"You're the man." Annabeth said rolling her eyes. "Welcome back Layla."

The first thing I noticed about Annabeth was her belly, she was definitely starting to show. I smiled.

"Hi." I said meekly, my voice was more rough than when I was talking to Apollo.

"You've missed a lot." Percy said.

"I suppose I have."

"Do you remember anything?" Annabeth asked.

"If you mean the reason why I'm laying in a hospital bed, no. I can only recall being with Aphrodite and getting this..." I touched my unharmed necklace. My memory of Limbo wouldn't return for a few months.

Percy and Annabeth looked at each other cautiously, not knowing if they wanted to tell me something. "You were in a car accident."

"Oh," I said, feeling relieved, "That's not so bad. How long was I out? A couple days? Hours?"

The two looked at each other, something wasn't right. "Layla, you've been in a coma for two months."

**Separation Line**

I stayed in Forks for the rest of the school year. Living in a town that never saw the sun wasn't so bad after all. It maintained the pain for a couple of days.

The hospital released me a week after I woke up from my hibernation. My left leg and hand were broken but had healed while I was out. I was still getting to the fact that one leg was skinnier than the other. I had several scars from stitches all over my body. One in particular ran right next to my eye brow and next to my ear, but Apollo was right, it was healing nicely. Seth stayed by my side the entire two months I was asleep, Jake eventually had to leave after a few says but Seth stayed until the day I woke up. Apparently he kissed me on the forehead when I went to sleep that night and left. He didn't say a word to me, but then again, I never tried to talk to him either.

My days in Forks went like this: wake up, take a butt load of pills (doctors orders), go to school, go home, eat, talk to Percy and Annabeth, take more pills, sit in misery, go to bed. For some reason I would sit in the chair in my room and think about when I was twelve years old and how at the time it seemed so cool that I knew Apollo personally and when I was thirteen how romantic it was that I was in a secret relationship with a god. Fool. I would gaze at my bed and think about the night we spent together, the night that set off terrible events. I called it 'my misery'.

One night I spent thirty drachmas trying to Iris Message Rex, but he rejected the call every time. I ended up curled in my bed sobbing, knowing he would never be my friend again. But I wouldn't want to be my friend either. I ended up writing 'fool' on the window sill next to my bed with an arrow pointed down to me.

A month before school was over I was sitting in my misery spot, toying with the cursed necklace when I saw Nessa doing the dishes from my window. I slowly got up and walked downstairs and out the front door without even thinking. I stepped out of my daily routine and up the steps of the Swan household. I stood in front of the door, hands in my pockets, trying to get the courage to knock. I almost went back home. What was I doing there? I dragged my hand up and rang the doorbell anyway.

I heard footsteps come to the door and open it. It was Nessa, her eyes grew a little wide then relaxed.

"Hi." She said in a shy voice.

"Hey," I started, "Um, can we talk?"

"Yeah... sure, come in." She seemed cautious, the way she looked at me made it seem like she wanted to be a mile away but couldn't resist being by my side.

She opened the door more for me to enter, she told me to sit on the couch, Nessa sat next to me and turned off the TV that was showing a baseball game.

"So, how have you been?" I asked trying to break the evident tension.

Nessa looked at her hands that were folded in her lap, "I'm okay, just trying to spend these last few weeks here as well as possible... And you?"

"Oh, you know, barely makin' it." I paused. "How is Seth doing?"

"Well, he's hanging on, kinda like you," She looked at me like she wasn't sure of something, "It would be easier for me to just show you."

"Is he here?" I started looking around, half embarrassed and half desperate.

"No he's... he's at the beach. But anyways, just don't freak out, okay?" Nessa said, reaching out her hand.

"I'm pretty used to freaky-"

Her hand touched my face and where we were sitting in Seth's backyard where we saw him looked into a fire and putting away a can of beer like there was no tomorrow. The scene changed and Jake was there too, they were in the woods in a head argument.

"It's over Jake! She doesn't want me anymore!"

"Then why aren't you trying to get her back?"

The scene changed again to Seth kissing another girl. Seeing this stung a little but you could see it in Seth's face that he wasn't really all there in the moment. We jumped into another point in time when I came back from New York, fresh from the hospital outfitted with one of those annoying boots.

"Looks like Layla is back." Nessa said, which was weird because I was seeing everything there her perspective and eyes. "Aren't you going to go welcome her home."

"Nessa..." Someone whispered into her each, it was Jake, Nessa looked at him. "He's still a little... raw."

"_He_ has ears." Seth said from across the room, "Besides, I think she just needs some space for now."

Again, the scene changed, we were in the kitchen of Nessa's house by the sink where I see her washing the dishes. You could also look straight into my room.

"Seth," She started, "Layla sits in that chair every _day_."

I was looking at my bed in my misery state and man did I look awful. My hair in a loose bun did nothing for my now pale complexion, my eyes had bags underneath them from no sleep and I slumped in that stupid white chair like nothing in the world mattered to me anymore because it had already been destroyed.

"Sometimes she cries," I saw myself crying, "Other times she just pulls at that necklace." I saw myself trying to rip off that stupid necklace. "She's had enough space by now Seth, she needs you now."

He looked at me and even though I knew he wouldn't, I wanted him to come and save me. Nessa took her hand away from my face and I was sucked back into reality. I toyed with my necklace in my fingers.

"I don't understand it." Nessa said.

"What don't you get?"

"I don't get how you can reject someone like Seth for someone like..."

"Someone like Apollo." I finished for her. "You know I'll be lucky if I ever see the sun again, I expect to be under to cover of clouds for the rest of my life."

"Why?" Aren't you engaged?" She said, gesturing to my necklace.

I laughed a little, "Engaged? No, not anymore, well we were never actually engaged in the first place... except for in his mind."

"But I thought you loved him."

"I do- I did, I don't really know anymore, it's hard when you're not allowed to forget." I looked at the floor.

We were silent for a moment, but then Nessa spoke up, "I think you need to talk to Seth."

"I agree, but he probably doesn't want to speak to me anymore."

"He does. He just can't admit it to himself that he needs you when it seems to him that you don't." She paused. "I'll go with you, right now he and Jake are down by La Push Beach at a bonfire with some other members of the pack."

"I don't think that's the best idea..."

"Layla, you'll never do it alone, I know we're not the best of friends but who else would do this for you? We both leave soon, it's now or never."

She had a point. I hated to admit it, but I was so scared to face Seth, if he didn't know about the truth of the engagement then he must be completely out of the loop. The truth was painful, who wants to know that their girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend?) was kidnapped then forced into engagement? "Okay, let's go."

La Push Beach was a flat, gloomy and extremely misty. The sand was almost black and drift wood littered the beach. It felt good being near the salty aromas, the ocean calmed my nerves that were practically jumping out of my body but unfortunately it just made me was to submerge myself into the waves and hide.

As Nessa and I neared the huge blue burning bonfire I whispered to Nessa and told her not to let me do anything stupid. There were a lot of people standing around the fire, I didn't recognize half of them until I realized that I hadn't seen them since that embarrassing family night at Seth's house so many months around. Jake hugged and kissed Nessa and stood with his arm around her. He said that he was glad to see me and alive and I agreed. I stayed close to them and my eyes soon landed on Seth. A girl with black hair looked starry eyed at Seth as they talked. He looked at her like he was trying to keep interest, like he had been talking to a child for too long. But someone whispered in his ear and he looked away from the girl and immediately met my eyes.

He looked so desperate to see me, and if he would have walked though the fire just to get to me. I would be lying if I said I didn't feel something. When he looked at me my necklace burned into my chest and my brain felt a huge snag, everything I was thinking went away. For a moment it was just Seth and I, but just as quickly I was back. I longed to wrap myself into his chest for a hug, I wanted so bad to rip my gaze away from his but I just couldn't. Was this the way he felt about me all the time? He jerked his head to the side, gesturing to talk.

I stepped out of the crowd of people with drinks in their hands. I started walking, my blue Nike tennis shoes sinking into the wet sand. I wish that I knew what I was going to say or do when Seth finally appeared at my side. He was looking at the dark sand as we walked, his hands in his sweatshirt pockets. We walked in silence for a few faces then the words just came out.

"Why did you leave?" I blurted out, looking up at his face that was still looking at the ground.

He was silent for a few seconds. "I didn't think you wanted me there."

I shook my head, almost not believing what I was hearing. "I was out for two _months_... I needed you in recovery more than I've ever needed you before."

He stopped walking and I stopped too, just a little ahead of him. "I thought you were _engaged_ Layla."

"Gods, why does everyone think I'm engaged?" I asked, exasperated. "In the two months that you spent by my side, Percy never even told you?"

"I don't think they knew at that point either."

"Oh they did, I've seen all the ridiculous news casts and articles about it, there's no way Annabeth and Percy could have avoided it."

"Well they failed to mention anything about it, besides, that necklace confused everyone." He walked past me and onward.

The necklaced burned into my chest. I ran to catch up to him.

"Can we just change the subject?"

"To what?" He sounded angry.

At this point my heart was heavy and I was worried that everyone believed a lie. I felt like no amount of explaining would get me and Seth back to the way it used to be when we were happy. In that short period of time when we were just a normal couple. But that was long gone, far back into the past, before anything weird started to happen. Before Apollo decided to barge in and seal the deal to prove Zeus was right.

"Who was that girl you were talking too?" I said trying to sound sincerely curious.

"No one."

"She didn't looked like no one."

I remembered her big hopeful eyes as she looked at Seth around the fire, like she would do anything to have him. I never thought Seth was the irresistible type, but I guess other girl thought the opposite. It was like she would love nothing more than to have Seth all to herself, and that she was determined to make him forget about me. Too bad it would never work.

"Well she's no one now." He said.

"So what was she then?"

"She used to be my girlfriend, we broke up a few weeks before you showed up." He started. "Her name is Natalie, we were together for a long time."

"How long is a long time?" I gulped.

"Five years."

He said five years like it was nothing. He talked about five years like the gods talked about decades, practically minutes in their lives. But in the last five years I've been to hell and back. Five years is a long time.

"_Five years?_

"Five years is nothing."

"But she's so young too."

"She's one of us. Natalie and Leah are the only girls in the pack."

I waited for him to say something else, but then I spoke up, "Did she imprint on you?"

"No," Seth stopped and looked puzzled, searching for the right words to say. "She broke up with me because I wouldn't marry her, she kept thinking I was taking so long to propose because I was waiting for the person I would imprint on so I could leave her."

"Oh," I said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

There were a million reasons, my coming here messed everything up. It all could have been prevented if I hadn't been so stupid. I'm still stupid, and a fool, but things would still be extremely different if I hadn't made the wrong choices when I was younger.

"I'm sorry that I came here and ruined everything for you and Natalie. Your life would have been so much less complicated if I had never shown up."

"Natalie was right though, I didn't let myself get too attached to her because I was scared I would imprint on someone and break her heart like Sam did. In the end I was glad she broke it off, because soon after, you showed up."

"I got here and all hell broke loose."

"No, not even close. You have your stories and I have mine, Nessa's mom caused more trouble here than you could ever imagine." He laughed a little at the memory.

Was this conversation finally relaxing? Were we slowly going back to the old Layla and Seth? At that moment I was set. Set to make this work, or at least mend the broken friendship.

* * *

**So, sorry that took just about forever to get up. The next chapter will most likely be the last. Say your good byes and don't forget to review! -Aims**


	23. Home

When the final bell rang on the last day of school, people screamed with excitement and seniors cried goodbye to their friends that wouldn't be attending the same college as them. Four years of friendship over. For me, it was my last day in Forks. Everything was planned out, I would live with Percy and Annabeth in their house in Long Island and finish up school there so I could graduate. Don't forget summer school, missing freshman and sophomore year left me with barely any credits. Camp Half-Blood was not an option, there was no way I could go back again. Percy and Annabeth would continue to go every one in a while for a day trip, but I wouldn't go with them.

Things were sorted out with Seth too, he was going to rent an apartment in the city, near Goode High School, where I would be attending, so we could be together. Yeah, we were back together, but not as serious as before, we were starting over. He would stop phasing too, so we could just be a normal couple, so he could grow older with me. Things weren't permanent, he knew that, but I still wanted it to last.

My necklace continued to stay tucked under my shirt, the constant reminder of what I did. But in time, I would barely even notice it, in a couple years it was just a necklace with a ring and two pearls on it. It didn't tear me apart like it used too. I don't think it was really meant to do that, it was a reminder. Not a stop sign telling me that I could never love again.

When I stepped out of Forks High for the last time, the contents of my locker weighing down my backpack, I felt the sun on my face for the first time in a long time. I drank it in, so did everyone else, sunny days in Forks were rare. Sunny days for _me_ were rare. When I jumped in the old Suburban, the inside was nice and warm, a sign that summer was here. I drove back to the house to drop my backpack off and change into shorts. My pale legs stuck out, my year round tan had evaporated.

When I found my way home, I walked into a house full of boxes. Sure, the place had been like this for a couple days now, but now we were actually moving out of this cursed town. Part of me couldn't wait to get out here, another part of me wanted to stay...actually scratch that, I wanted to leave pronto. Of course I'd come back with Seth so he could see his family, but I had no intentions of staying in Forks any longer than I had to. This place had just given me a year of bad memories.

Everything was ready to go. Annabeth and Percy sat on the couch together waiting for me to get home so we could all go. They looked like they were in a deep conversation. I assumed it was about the baby because Annabeth was due in a few weeks, her belly was so huge that I caught myself staring a lot. I guess that's what I have to look forward to. Yipee.

"Hey, I'm back." I said mildly.

The two looked at me and Percy stood up, then helped Annabeth onto her feet.

"Alright, we should get going." He said.

I dumped all of my now useless papers, notebooks, and folders into the nearby trashcan and slung my backpack over my shoulder once again, this time is weighed a lot less. Today we were to leave this old house, back to the comfy home in Long Island. Our stuff and ourselves would be transported there via Hermes Express like when we arrived here. I had said my goodbyes to everyone at school or the night before. Seth would be moving to New York in a couple of months. Until then I had a summer to live up to, hopefully I would get my tan back and work on my surfing skills. Percy's beach house was going to come in handy.

I'm going to admit, I was nervous about Seth moving to the city. It was totally out of his element. New York City was a nightmare when you grew up surrounded by the trees. I was worried he would feel trapped in his miniscule high rise apartment, and that he would have a hard time controlling his anger and emotions. There would be no room for him to slip up, if Seth phased in the street or even in his apartment, all hell would break loose. And if we had relationship troubles I would start to feel guilty because he had given up his entire life just to be close to me. I tried not to think about it, if I over-thought the whole thing, the both of us would end up unhappy. Again.

"I Iris Messaged Hermes, he should be here any minute now." Annabeth said, emerging from the kitchen.

I took a look around the living room. I thought about Rachel Dare crashing on the couch for what seemed like forever. My eyes glanced over to the porch and I remembered when the pack first found out about us, along with Edward and Alice Cullen who I still had no idea what exactly they were. I looked out the window near the stairs and saw Nessa's house. I never really understood her either, but Jake loved her and Seth thought of her like family so she wasn't all that bad. But she would be leaving this place soon too. Even though all she wanted to do was stay, she had to go back home to Alaska. Apparently her mother was a worrier and her father didn't completely trust Jake. Who _wouldn't_ trust a werewolf? There were a lot of memories in this place, good and bad. But lets face it, they're mostly bad.

Out on the porch there was a brilliant gold light that shot through the small windows surrounding the door, the light quickly faded and the door knob turned. Hermes burst through the door with a wide smile on his face, he quickly checked his watch and fixed his winged cap. Today he was a post officer, I thought this outfit suited him the best, I didn't understand why he always changed it. Percy liked his aviator look but whatever.

"Hello my friends, it's a delight to see you once again." The messenger god said with ease, he looked at me for a moment and then continued. "But we must get this show on the road, tight schedule as always. You know the drill, grab my arm, hold on for your life, and for gods sake, don't look down."

Percy, Annabeth, and I took one final look around and grabbed onto Hermes. I felt us all take a deep breath as out eyes squeezed tight. Light engulfed us and I felt us moving impossibly fast through air. It was only a few seconds until the light started to fade and we landed in the middle of Percy's nautical home on the Atlantic coast. All of our stuff was perfectly in place in the more spacious house, everything was out of their boxes, and where it should be.

"Thanks for the lift man, I really appreciate you doing this." Percy said shaking the god's hand.

"It was no problem, now I must be on my way. But first," Hermes looked at me and extended his arm towards the sliding glass doors that led to the back deck that looked onto the ocean, "May I a word with you, Layla?"

"Yes, Lord Hermes." Tip #1 for getting on a god's good side, and it's about the one and only tip I have to offer, when you think you're in trouble, call them Lord or Lady, its an ego boost for them. I mean it's not like you can say 'Ay yo Hermes! Be there in a sec!'.

I followed him out to the deck where the sea breeze blew through my now long light blonde hair. My palms began to sweat a little, I hadn't spoken to a god in a long time, and I was never sure if it was good or bad. Because it's usually bad. I couldn't help but to gaze down at the gray floor boards as I leaned against the white railing.

"Chin up Layla Brice, you're not in trouble." Hermes said nicely.

I looked up and saw the earnest forest green eyes of the god. He wore a genuine smile but it slowly faded and now it was he who looked down.

"I just wanted to say how truly sorry I am... about what happened with... Apollo." He looked back into my eyes. "I knew that you would fall for him, but I never saw how many people this whole thing would hurt. I didn't once stop and think about how I would feel if he was preying on one of my children if I was in your father's position. I regret my lack of action, so I need you to understand that I am truly, sorry."

"My Lord," I placed a hand on his arm, "It's okay, it's not your fault. When it all boils down to it, its my fault, and unfortunately it's Amelia's, Rebecca's, Jessica's, and Kristen's too. Don't beat yourself up so much about it, I had to learn that the hard way."

"You're stronger than they make you seem Ms. Brice." Hermes said. "But I still apologize for this whole ordeal, no one deserves to be played with like dolls by the gods."

"Well they've been doing it for eons so I don't think it's going to change. But thank you for being gracious enough to apologize to me like this. You're the cool god you know."

Hermes chuckled and checked his watch, "Well I must be going, I will see you when I see you Layla."

"Good luck with those messages." I said with a smile.

I turned so he could leave in his bight flashing way. As his light dimmed, I could practically hear the ocean calling my name. It been so long, I preferred the Atlantic over the Pacific now that I had experienced both. The Atlantic was more like home. I started down to the beach and watched as the waves crashed down on the sand. The sun was sinking below the horizon behind me and cast an array of oranges and pinks onto the water. I wadded out, knee deep in the sea. My senses came alive and power surged through my veins. I curled my toes into the sand, and I closed my eyes, letting the salty air fill my nose and the breeze comb through my hair.

For the first time in a long time I knew I was somewhere I belonged. The sea would always be that sense for me. I was home. This time it was for good.

* * *

**And so it comes to an end. Thanks to everyone who reviewed or followed this story!**


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